Lucy
by addisongrace22
Summary: It's just a normal day at work for Erin Lindsay and Jay Halstead, they never expected to find something that would change both of their lives forever.
1. Chapter 1

"Alright Sarge what do we have?" I ask as I emerge from the driver's side of my car.

"Responding to a 911 call from neighbors of shots fired inside the house. We've got one confirmed body, a woman, maybe late twenties or early thirties." Voight says.

"Alright let's take a look." I say as I cross under the crime scene tape and heads towards the front door of the townhouse. As Jay and I walk through the front door, we see the fallen woman, slain across her living room floor with blood splattered all around.

"Have they found anyone else in the house?" Jay asks the crime scene techs.

"We haven't found anyone else yet, but we just got here." He says.

"Alright we're going to search the house then." I say. He gives me a nod and we set off to look while Voight and Antonio continue to talk to the techs. We start up the stairs to the second level, our guns removed from our holsters and out in front of us. The house was old and the stairs creak with every movement we make. The seasoned hard wood floors continue into the flat surface of the second floor and we are faced by a hallways with several doors mostly open.

"Halstead you go left, I'll go right,"I say as they start their search. He gives me a nod. I clear an empty room and a bathroom before I come across the room of a small child.

"Jay was there any report of a child in the house?" I yell back towards him.

"No, why?" He responds.

"I've got a kids room here." I say. I walk into the room to find it empty. But when I open the closet doors I see a very different sight. "Jay get in here!" I yell as I take in the little girl. I can hear the footsteps of my partner approaching me as my heart drops at the absolute fear in this little girl's eyes. I slowly lower my gun to the floor and Jay runs into the room.

"Erin what's going on?" He answers his own question quite quickly as he looks past my shoulders. The little girl has red hair, falling to her shoulders in loose curls, her hazel eyes peering deep into my soul.

"Hi sweetie, my name is Erin. and this is my friend Jay." She says gently as she gestured towards me. "Can you tell me your name?" She shakes her head no, but Jay points to the the name Lucy painted on the wall above her bed. "Is your name Lucy?" I ask her. She gives me a little nod. "Okay Lucy what do you think about coming with me and my friend Jay?" She shakes her head no again and tears begin to seep out of her eyes. "Oh sweetie no don't cry." I say, being cautious not to make her uncomfortable.

"Lucy don't be scared, we're the good guys. We're the police," Jay says with a little smile. Her hazel eyes open wide, glossed over with tears as she begins to think over his statement.

"They hurt my mommy." She says sobbing as she collapses into my arms.

"I know sweetie, I know." I say as I rub her back and try to calm her. "But you're safe now, everything is going to be okay. It's okay," She clings onto me and wraps her arms around my neck as she soaks my vest with her salty tears. I boost her onto my hip as she continues to sob and Jay follows us out. As we descend down the stairs, I try my best to keep her innocent eyes from seeing the situation in the living room and exit the house as fast as possible, leaving Jay to explain the situation to Voight and Antonio. I can tell everyone is staring at me as I carry the sobbing girl down the stairs and across the street into my car. I see Jay following me out and stop outside the back door of my car.

"You feel like driving?" I saw as I toss him the keys. He responds with a simple smirk, knowing I almost never let him anywhere near the driver's seat. He pulls open the back door for me and I slip into the back seat with Lucy pulled tight into my arms. Jay sits silently in the front seat, giving me the occasional glance to make sure we were okay.

"Hey sweetheart, can you tell me your full name?" I ask once the tears have begun to subside.

"Lucy Claire McGovern." She says quietly as she begins to separate her head from my chest.

"Alright how about your age? Do you know how many years old you are?" She hold up four fingers.

"Okay Lucy, so right now Jay is driving us back to the police station, that's where we work." I say gently. "When we get there we're going to take you upstairs and then we're going to ask you a couple questions. Is that okay?" I say. She begins to whimper.

"Hey hey don't worry," Jay pipes in from the driver's seat. "It'll be super fast and we'll be there the whole time. No one's going to leave you." She silently agrees and snuggles herself back as much as she can into my bulletproof vest and falls asleep. It's not long before we arrive at the 21st District and we pull in. Lucy is back on my hip and Jay discreetly has a hand on my shoulder. We ascend up the steps to the front door and the shock on Platt's face is undeniable when she sees the little girl in my arms. Jay gives her a look that says, don't you dare say anything, and she just nods us off. Jay presses his hand to the palm scanner and punches in the code to release the lock on the door to Intelligence. I climb up the steps, trying my absolute hardest to not wake her up as we go. I see the eyes of my coworkers widen as their eyes rise from the paperwork on their desks. I transfer Lucy into Jay's arms and her heads rolls comfortably to his shoulder.

"So Lindsay what's up with the kid?" Ruzek asks, sticking his foot in his mouth like usual. I roll my eyes at him before I answer.

"Her name is Lucy McGovern, found her hiding in a closet at the crime scene." I say.

"You going to call DCFS?" Al asks.

"I'm going to wait for Voight to get back her so we know what we're dealing with. We may have to keep her in protective custody." He nods back at me. "Alright I should go see her, Jay promised we wouldn't leave her so I should be there when she wakes up." I get a wave from Ruzek as I follow Jay's lead into the break room where Lucy is curled up on the couch.

"How's she doing?" I say as I look at the sweet little girl in front of me.

"Still out like a light," He says with a smile.

"So if she needs to be in protective custody, I was thinking that I could take her home with me."

"Oh okay," He says, taking in my statement. "Can I ask why?"

"I don't know Jay, she reminds me of me I guess. She's all alone, she has no one to lean on and neither did I. Everyone should have someone to lean on." I say while shifting my weight between my legs.

"Okay," He says with a smile. We see her begin to stir on the couch and our conversation comes to an abrupt halt.

"Hey sweetheart," I say as I rush over to her on the couch.

"Hey Erin," she says sleepily as she rubs her eyes.

"How you doing sweet girl?" A smile begins to form on her face and she opens her mouth to speak as the events of the day flow back to her. The floodgates open the tears pool down her face, sobs escaping her faster than I knew possible.

"Hey Luce don't cry, it's okay." I engulf her in my arms and begin to rock her back and frog in my arms. Jay stands there confused, I can tell the situation is a little bit uncomfortable for him and he doesn't know quite what to do. I motion for him to come sit with us and use my eyes to tell him to wrap his arms around her as well. Her tears begin to fade as the added comfort of being held all around her came in.

"Voight's here, do you want to talk to him or should I?" Jay asks.

"I'll go, you stay here with Lucy, just hold her," I say. I look down and whisper into her ear. "Lucy I'm going to go talk to my friend Hank over there, can I leave you here with Jay is that okay?" She whimpers and nods her head yes before releasing her death grip on my wrist. I nod to Jay before getting up and turning around to see her shift in his lap to bury her face in his chest. I close the door of the break room to make sure her little ears won't hear anything either me or Voight is about to say.

"Voight what do we have on the vic?" I say quietly.

"Her name was Hannah Garnell, her boyfriend Paul McGovern was a heroin dealer, he got in badly with some gang, killed 3 months ago. But he owed money to a bigger player in his game, that's when they came to collect from Hannah. When she didn't have the money, they shot her. The kid,"

"Lucy, her name is Lucy," I interrupt.

"Lucy," He starts again, "She hid in the closet when she heard the shots and that's what we have so far. We called DCFS and told them we're putting her in protective custody until we catch the guy."

"Hank," I say nervously, "can I take her?" He looks stunned as he reacts to my statement.

"Well I guess you could, but why Erin?" He says, curiosity lining his face.

"She's alone, she doesn't have anyone, and I think she trusts me Hank. Plus Jay kinda told her that we wouldn't leave her." I say sheepishly.

"Wait Halstead's going with you?" He exclaims.

"Hank it's not like that, you know that. It's just to make Lucy feel comfortable. And after everything she's been through I think we at least owe her that." I say, arguing my point.

"Okay fine, I'll call DCFS and let them know. Right now, take that vest off and see if you can get the girl to tell you anything."

"Hank she won't talk today, she's in shock her mother just died and she's four years old. We can't push her too much, she'll shut down so fas-." I ramble as he put a hand on my shoulder to very quickly shut me up.

"Okay Lindsay, I understand, take Halstead and Lucy, the day's nearly over so take the rest of the day off and get her settled in your apartment. When she's ready to talk let me know."

"Okay," I say with a nod as he brushes my shoulder. I walk back over to the break room and open the door quietly.

"Hey Luce I have something to ask you." She looks up from Jay's chest for a second and perks up just a little bit, those big hazels glaring through me.

"What is it?" She says, trying to wipe away her tears.

"So I talked to my friend Hank and he said that you could come have a sleepover at my house tonight? How does that sound?" She gives me a small smile and a nod.

"Can Jay come with us?" She asks, tears glossing her eyes. Jay looks up at me for an answer.

"Yeah sweetie, Jay can come with us." He looks at me confused.

"I'll explain later," I say quietly. "You ready to go Lucy?"

"Oh we're going now?" He questions.

"Yeah Voight gave me the go ahead and said to take the rest of the day off and get her settled in my apartment." I move to grab Lucy from Jay's arms, but she flinches at the touch, so I shrug and leave her in the very protective arms of my partner. He stands up without missing a beat and just walks down the center of the bullpen without a second thought. We descend down the stairs, through the Intelligence gates, past the front desk, and down the front steps of the 21st. My car is parked right where Jay left it and he pulls open the back door as I unlock the front and effortlessly slides into the back seat without loosening his grip on the four year old. I feel my heart tighten at the sight. No child should ever have to go home like this. Hell she's not even going home, she's going to my apartment to enter protective custody. No child should have to go through that. But for now, this was going to be her home. I put the car in reverse and pull out, subconsciously taking a look at Lucy in Jay's arms through the rear view mirror.

"Alright Lucy, let's get you home."


	2. Chapter 2

I close the door of the spare bedroom in my apartment on a sleeping Lucy. I've just spent the last two hours rocking her to sleep and convincing her that she was safe and no one could hurt. It pulled at my heartstrings every time I saw a tear escape from her little eyes. But now she was finally asleep, leaving her in a temporary state of peace, something I believed she desperately needed. When we had gotten back to the apartment, she had begun to cling to me and Jay and I both agreed that it was best I put her to sleep. We'd slipped her into one of my t shirts that's honestly fit like a dress, but it seemed like it would be more comfortable for her to sleep in than what she had on. It had been a struggle to get her to sleep, but it was more than worth it for this little girl.

I can tell by the look on Jay's face that the exhaustion is pretty clear on my own face.

"How'd it go?" He asks.

"I wouldn't say it was awesome, but I think she tired herself out with all the crying." I say tiredly. He responds with a sympathetic smile.

"So what did Voight say about her?" He asks.

"The dad, Paul McGovern heroin dealer, he was killed three months ago. But apparently he owed money to another dealer, but he was dead so he obviously couldn't pay him back, so the dealer or rather someone the dealer hired went back to get the money from his girlfriend Hannah Garnell, Lucy's mom. We're keeping her in protective custody until we catch the guys behind this. Protective custody being me. He called DCFS to let them know, so she'll be with me until then." I say, leaning my weight against the island in my kitchen.

"Wow okay, did you tell Luce that she'll be here for a while?" He asks.

"I told her that she'd be staying with me for a little while. She said okay, I mean I didn't expect too much of a reaction from her. She's still in shock, but she didn't object to it so that's a good thing.I didn't say anything about the protective custody because thought it would just confuse and scare her." I say.

"That was probably a good call." He says, "Anyway while you were back with Luce, I ordered a pizza because I assumed you wouldn't be up to cooking," He says with his signature grin.

"Dude you know me, when am I ever up to cooking?" I joke, "But seriously thank you, there's been so many moving parts tonight I didn't even realize how hungry I was." I say as I pat him on the shoulder.

"Hey what are partners for," He says with a smile. "Oh before I forget, Voight said said for the two of us to take the next couple days off, make sure she's safe and happy before we go back to work."

"Alright that's good," I say as I flop onto the couch. A knock on the door rings through the small apartment just as I sit down. I move to get up again, but Jay waves me off. "There should be cash on the front table!" I add.

"Don't worry about it, I got it." He says as opens the front door and pulls a twenty out of his back pocket. He exchanges come dialogue with the delivery guy but I'm not really listening. All I can do it remember the events of the day and go over all the details in my head. This choice was rash and probably irresponsible, but it feels right. I know that this little girl needs me, and maybe I need her just as much she needs me.

"Lindsay?" I hear. I blink myself back to reality as Jay sets the pizza down on the coffee table.

"Yeah sorry I'm here, just dazed off for a second." I say.

"No problem," He says as he hands me a slice of pizza on a paper plate. "I was just wondering, do you have a plan for what you're going to do with Lucy." He says. I take a bite of pizza and chew while I contemplate an answer to his question.

"Not really, I decided to take her on a quick impulse, I didn't really think about it, but she has no one right now. Everyone deserves to have someone, so for now I'll be her someone. I was surprised how fast she warmed up to us, but it's definitely a good thing. Plus since Voight gave us the next few days off, I was going to go shopping with her tomorrow and just get her some clothes and things to get her settled. And I was hoping that you could help me out?" I say with a smile.

"Of course," He says, putting his hand on my knee. I feel butterflies as his hand makes contacts. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be." He says with a grin.

Our little moment is quickly interrupted when a blood curdling scream escapes from Lucy's room. Faster than I ever thought possible, both of us have dropped our plates and are running full speed to the room. Jay gets there first and she's clutching onto his arms sobbing, her face pressed into his chest as her rocks her in his arms. I hear him trying to calm her as the tears keep rolling down her face. I take a position next to him, rubbing circles on her back as her wails fill the walls of the apartment.

"It's okay Lucy, it's okay." Jay says soothingly as her cries slowly begin to subside.

"Sweetie what's wrong?" I ask her gently.

"I-I was b-back in my room, there was a noise and then my mama yelled for me to hide and th-then someone h-hurt her." She chokes out between sobs.

"Oh honey," I say as I continue to rub her back, just wanting to take away some of her pain. "It was only a dream, and now you're here with me and with Jay and you're safe, no one is going to get hurt anymore." I reassure her. Her tears slow down and eventually become only a trickle from the corner of her eye.

"Where's my mama?" She asks with wide eyes. My heart breaks as she asks the question. The last thing I want to do is tell a sobbing four year old. I look to Jay for support or maybe an answer.

"Lucy do you know what heaven is?" He asks her. She gives him a little nod. "Well your mama had to go to heaven."

"Is she coming back soon?" She asks, concern and fear filling her beautiful hazel eyes. I take a breath in before I answer her, bracing myself for the fountain of tears to follow.

"I'm so sorry Lucy, your mama isn't going to come back." I say gently.

"Are you sure?" She chokes out.

"Yeah baby, I'm sure." I whisper. Surprising us both, she doesn't cry. She just closes her eyes and burrows her face farther into Jay's now nearly soaked t - shirt.

"Hey Lucy," I say, wiping a few of the tears starting to form at the corners of my eyes. "Do you want to sleep in my bed tonight?" She looks up at me and gives a small nod.

"Can Jay stay with us?" She asks, her eyes full of hope.

"Luce I don't know if I can stay it's Erin's apart-," He starts.

"Yeah Lucy he can stay here tonight." I finish for him. I look at him for approval and the look on his face tells me he's okay with it. We sit there in silence for a few more minutes, with me rubbing her back and Jay just holding her close.

"Lucy Claire, you ready to go?" He asks. She smiles at hearing both of her names and nods up at him. She wraps her skinny little arms around his neck and twists her legs around his waist as he stands up to carry her into my bedroom. I follow pretty closely behind them, my heart exploding at at amount of sadness but also cuteness in the same picture. He plops her into the center of my bed and pulls up the blankets to her chest.

"You all ready to sleep Lucy?" Jay asks, taking a step back from the bed. She nods, her tear stained cheeks rising with her little smile. "Do you think it'll be okay if I go have a quick talk with Erin?" I see her eyes widen with fear. "Don't worry Luce, it'll be super fast. You won't even notice we're gone. And we'll be right outside there." He says, pointing to the bedroom door. I can tell she's still a little timid, but she gives him a nod back. "Alright then we'll be right back." He grabs my wrist and walks me out of the room.

"Jay what's up?" I ask as we take out spots right outside the door, just as promised.

"You sure you're okay with me staying over?" He says nervously.

"Yeah Jay, it's what she wants. And right now that's what we have to worry about." I say with full confidence.

"What about Voight, isn't he going to freak out?" He asks.

"It's not like anything is going to happen," I say, "and even if it did, it wouldn't really be any of Voight's business."

"Okay I guess I'll take the couch then." He says.

"Don't be dumb, sleep in the bed. Lucy's really attached to you as well and it's just two friends sleeping next to each other, not weird at all." I say with a smirk.

"Okay, you go change in there, I'm going to run down to the car I think I might have something to change into in there." He says.

"Okay the keys are," I start.

"In the thing on the table by the front door I know," He says, flashing me that Halstead grin. I shoot a look back at him and retreat into my bedroom to change into pajamas. When I got back, she's already asleep again, showing me just how exhausted this little girl was.I smiled at her, her head resting in the crack made by the two pillows on either side of the bed. She looks like a little angel, her eyes shut and a halo of fiery red hair surrounding her. Taking one more look at her, I slip off my jeans and switch them out for a pair of black leggings and my top for a yellow tank top.

I pull my shoulder length hair into a bun on the top of my head and pad into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. I'm done before Jay gets back and I'm sitting in bed scrolling through my phone when he walks through the bedroom door. I guess he found something because his jeans have been traded out for CPD sweatpants although his gray t shirt remains the same.

"We going to sleep already?" He says as he approaches the opposite side of the bed, referencing the fact that it's only like 9 pm.

"Yeah it's been a long day and I don't think it'll hurt to get a good night's sleep I have a feeling we'll need it tomorrow." I say with a shrug.

"Yeah you're probably right," He says as he pushes back the covers on his side to climb in bed.

"Goodnight Halstead," I say as I click off the light next to me and turn off my phone.

"Goodnight Lindsay,"


	3. Chapter 3

I wake up to sunlight streaming through the window in my room and Lucy curled into my side, her head resting on my chest, shallow breaths escaping her. That's when I notice it, Jay's arm bridging over Lucy's tiny body and wrapped around my waist. I blush slightly and carefully tuck his hand around Lucy as I roll over. After her meltdown last night, everything had been relatively eventful. She slept soundly through the entire night and hopefully didn't have another nightmare. The clock reads 8:04, I've slept much later than I usually do. Pulling the covers back, I grab the clothes I'll need for the day from my closet and a towel from another one near to my bathroom. I slip into the bathroom, the cold tile feeling foriegn against the bare soles of my feet. I pull the door closed behind me and slip out of my clothes, discarding them mindlessly in the hamper until laundry day.

I reach into the giant glass box and turn the handle and wait for the water to flow. The hot water hits the tile at the base of the shower with a thud and steam begins to rise from the floor. Almost too hot to stand it, just the way I like it.

I climb in and a certain calmness falls over me. I just take a moment to relax, absent to any outside distractions. I finish up quickly, out of habit I guess. I scrunch my hair in my towel before wrapping it around myself and drying myself off. I opt to air dry my hair, as not to wake the two of them up with the hair dryer. I pull on my jeans and slip a purple t-shirt over my head before exiting the bathroom and grabbing my phone from my bedside table on the way to the kitchen. The forgotten pizza lays abandoned from last night. I grab the box and toss it into the fridge, we'll eat it at some point. you I grab a mug from the bottom shelf of a cabinet and pop a pod into the top of my coffee maker.I hear a click as the little spike breaks the seal on the top of the pod. I press the lit up button and the hot water begins to flow through the machine, dark liquid we all know and love coming out the other end. When the cup is finished brewing, I wrap my hands around the cup and the heat from the coffee seeps into my hands. I'm about to take a sip when Jay walks through the bedroom door.

"How'd you sleep?" I say, turning towards him.

"Pretty well," He says with a yawn as he beelines towards the coffee machine. "Although you kick in your sleep Lindsay." He says with a smirk.

"I do not!" I exclaim, "It must have been Lucy!"

"Oh no, don't go blaming the child, you definitely kick in your sleep,"

"What are you talking about? No one has ever said anything about me kicking in my sleep!" I shoot back.

"Oh okay," He starts, "Tell that to the bruises on my calves." He pulls up the bottom of his sweatpants up to his knees to reveal several round purple spots. I cringe at the damage I've apparently inflicted.

"Oh," I say, "okay so maybe I do kick in my sleep. Sorry Jay," I say sheepishly.

"Don't worry about it Lindsay, I mean you probably injured me worse before," He says with a smirk as I whack him on the shoulder. "See what I mean?" He says with a look of fake hurt on his face.

"Oh shut up Halstead, you know I can do worse, consider yourself lucky," I say with a smirk. He scoffs at me and turns around to make his coffee. I know we're flirting and I know we shouldn't be, but I can't help it. It feels so natural. I find myself gazing off into the distance as little feet find their way into the kitchen.

"Good morning Luce," Jay says as he pulls her into his side for a quick hug.

"How'd you sleep sweetheart?" I ask, pulling myself back to reality.

"Pretty good I guess," She replies with a straight face.

"Alright," I say, trying to switch the subject around a bit. "So I was thinking that maybe we could make some breakfast and then we could go shopping to get you some new clothes. What do you think?"

"Can we make pancakes?" She asks, the first signs of a smile beginning to grace her face.

"Of course we can!" I exclaim, maybe a little too enthusiastically, but I know I've done the right thing when a big smile spreads across her face.

"You sure you want Erin to cook?" Jay jokes.

"Oh shush I can do pancakes," I scoff. He looks at me questioningly. "Seriously!" I retort back. "Okay I know I'm not the best cook, but I can make a mean pancake," I say.

"Alright whatever you say," He says, throwing his hands up in surrender. "I'm going to go jump in the shower," He starts. "Luce keep an eye on Erin, make sure she doesn't burn the building down," She responds with an enthusiastic nod as I roll my eyes at my partner.

"Alright girly," I say as I lift her up onto the island and plant her with her legs hanging off. "You ready to make some pancakes?"

She looks at me nervously before saying, "You aren't going to start a fire right?"

"No sweetie that was just Jay being silly," I say as I grab the pancake mix and a bowl from some cabinets. I hear her breathe a sigh of relief behind me.

"Should we put anything in our pancakes?" I ask as I turn to face her again.

She crinkles her brow for a second as she considers this.

"Do you have chocolate chips?" She asks.

"I think so let me check," I turn back towards my pantry and bit down slightly on my lower lip as I search the shelves for the yellow bag I'm looking for. I spot it behind a bag of flour that may or may not have exploded a little. "Luce look what I found?" I say as I do some bizarre little dance from the pantry back over to the island. She responds with a little giggle and a clap of her tiny hands.

"So my dear, do you know how to make pancakes?" I ask.

"Um not really," She says, "but my mama always let me stir."

"I bet you're the best stir-er in all of Chicago!" I say as she grins back at me.

I put the mix, water, and finally the chocolate chips into a glass bowl and then hand Lucy a spoon so she could stir everything thing together. I grab a pan from beneath the stove and spray it with a can of cooking spray and grab a plate from the cabinet to put the finished pancakes on.

"Lucy do you know how to tell when you should flip the pancakes?" I ask as I pour the first round of batter onto the sizzling pan.

"Nope, how do you do it?" She asks.

"You can see them right now, but pretty soon you'll see these little bubbles on top of the pancakes. When they stop popping and stay bubbled, you know it's ready to flip." I say.

"That's cool," She says. "When will the bubbles get here?" She asks, staring very intently at the pan.

"Just watch they'll come, you've got to be patient." I stifle a laugh as she trains her wide eyes on the cooking batter.

"I see them!" She exclaims as the first remnants of bubbles begin to fill the pan. "And they're staying bubbled!" She says excitedly.

"And what does that mean?" I tease.

"We can flip them!" She says with joy in her eyes.

"You are exactly right my dear," I say as I begin to flip the pancakes. "And look at that we have some perfect pancakes!" She giggles and we repeat the process a couple more times until we've used all the batter.

We're putting the last of the pancakes on the plate when Jay emerges from the bedroom.

"Well they smell good," He says with a smile as he rubs his hair down with a towel. He's wearing the same outfit from yesterday so I assume we'll have to stop by his apartment.

"See I can make pancakes!" I say as I grab three plates from the upper cabinets and three forks from a drawer.

"Yeah Jay, Erin can make pancakes," Lucy says, a little bit of sass shining through.

"Alright, alright, let's try them before we get crazy." He says as he sits down on one of my bar stools.

Lucy places a pancake on his plate and hands him a fork. He takes a bite and she stares him down waiting for a reaction.

"They're actually really good," He says as he swallows.

"Yes!" Lucy exclaims as she reaches back to high five me. My heart swells at the little things that can make her happy. We all sit down to breakfast and make mindless conversation, mostly led by Lucy rambling about anything and everything. A lot of her conversations didn't make any sense, but I'm glad she's at least talking more now. She barely said two words last night. After we had finished eating, Jay cleared the dishes and took the duty of washing them as I took Lucy back to the guest room to re dress her in what she had on yesterday.

I slipped my shirt off her tiny body and pulled yellow top and little jeans back on her.

"So Luce we're going to go shopping now to get you some new clothes that you can wear while you're staying with me, sound good?" She respond with a nod of the head. She didn't have any shoes on when we found her, but Jay grabbed a pair of pink flats from her room on the way out. I grab a brush from my bathroom and gently brush through her red waves. When we're done, we come back into the kitchen and see Jay closing the dishwasher.

"Hey Erin, can we head to my apartment on the way out today? I was just going to run up quickly," He says.

"Yeah no problem, you ready to go?" I ask as I grab a pair of grey converse from near the front door.

"Yeah, you?" He ask.

"Yup," I say as I tie the laces on my shoes. "and miss Lucy here is all set aren't you?" I say as she gives an enthusiastic nod.

"All right then, let's go," He says as he crosses the room to grab Lucy's hand. She happily reaches up and curls her little hand in his. I grab my keys from the dish near the front door and my small bag from the hook on the wall. Jay and Lucy walk out the door as I flick off the lights behind me. We make the trek down the four flights of stairs and into the crisp autumn air. My car is parked a block or so down from the front door and as we're walking down there, Lucy reaches over with her free hand to grab my hand. I smile down at her as we arrive at the 300.

"Er, we don't have a car seat and I don't know if holding her is going to go over real well," Jay says as he opens the back door of the car and slides her in.

"I guess we'll have to just put her in the backseat and I'll drive really carefully. Can you sit with her?" I ask as I circle around the front of the car and open the driver's door.

"Yeah no problem," He says as he gets in.

"Alright then let's go,"


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you for all the reviews and positive feedback! I read them all and I really appreciate each and everyone of them! Now onto Chapter 4!**

Our first stop after Jay's apartment of course, was Target. Jay and I were both clueless about where you could buy a kids car seat and Target seemed like a safe bet.

"You ready to go little miss?" I say as I pull her out from the back seat and hoist her onto my hip.

"Yup!" She says as she grins up at me.

"Okay so first of order of business is a car seat," Jay says as we head towards the sliding doors at the front of the red building.

"Alright Luce, you want to walk or sit up in the cart?" I ask her as we enter through the sliding doors.

"I'm a big girl I can walk," She says triumphantly.

"Okay then you will walk," I say as I place her swiftly down on the dark grey carpet in the entry way. She runs behind me to grab Jay's hand as I release a cart from the several horizontally stacked. It surprises me how quickly she bonded with us, but again I was grateful. It was nice to have her trust us. Or at least start to anyway.

We move quickly through the store, trying to find the quickest path towards what we're looking for when we run into someone I really hoped I'd never see again.

"OH MY GOD ERIN!" I hear. That screeching voice, I'll never forget it. It takes me all the way back to high school, not a favorite place of mine. I can see her perfect dark hair and ice blue eye. And his particular voice happens to belong to a girl named Celia Kates, a voice I've hoped to never hear again.

"Celia," I say as I turn around, a fake smile plastered thick across my face. I catch a bizarre look from Jay as I turn on my heels.

"What's it been, over ten years?" She squeals.

"Yeah, something like that" I say, that smile not going anywhere.

"And who is this?" She says, waving over towards Jay and Lucy.

"This is my partner Jay and this is Lucy," I say, not clarifying that I mean work partner and not partner, partner.

"Well nice to meet you," She says shaking Jay's free hand " and she is absolutely beautiful, she has your eyes," She says with a wink as she looks down at Lucy. I can tell that Lucy's confused, trying to process who this new person is.

"Uh thank you," I respond simply, not wanting to explain the complex situation we're in.

"Okay we'll I've got to get going," She says with a small wave, "But you should text me, I'd love to meet and catch up sometime!" She says as she walks away from us. Once she's out of hearing distance, Jay breaks out into a series of laughs.

"What's so funny?" I ask, shoving him.

"That's the most un-Lindsay thing I've ever seen." He says between laughs, "Who was that anyway?"

"That would be Celia Kates, she's about the fakest bitch I've ever met," I say.

"C'mon Lindsay, little ears over here!" Jay says jokingly as he claps his hands over Lucy's ears.

"I CAN STILL HEAR YOU!" Lucy exclaims as she fights Jay's hands over her ears. "And I know that word Jay," She says like it's the most obvious thing in the entire world.

"Well Luce, that is a bad word. Don't use it okay?" He says, bending down to her level.

"Okay Jay I won't," She says.

"You promise?" He says.

"I promise," She says with a smile.

"Okay now let's go get you a car seat," He says as he rises up to his normal height. She smiles up at me as she regains Jay's hand in hers. The three of us walked past the aisles, peeking down searching for the one that contains car seats.

"Lu, look what I found!" I say as we come across the aisle.

"Alright Luce, what color do you want?" Jay asks as we turn in.

"I don't care," She says, "It's just a car seat. But not pink, I don't like pink." I stifle a grin, "Alright then no pink," I say as we browse through the many many options on display.

"What about this one?" Jay says as we come across a black and red one.

"I like that one Erin," Lucy says as she stares up at it.

"I mean I don't see any issues with it, and the safety credentials seem good, yeah let's

"Yes!" Lucy exclaims as she high fives Jay with her free hand. He smiles down on her and bends down as he releases her hand to grab the box that holds the car seat we're buying.

"Alright now we gotta get some clothes for you," I say as we turn the cart around.

I never thought I would get excited about children's clothing, but over the next hour as Lucy picked out and tried on clothes, it brought me so much joy. It felt like we were a normal family, out on normal shopping trip with their toddler. But we weren't. We weren't a family, Lucy wasn't mine and neither was Jay. And I tried my best to suppress the feeling, knowing that it would only hurt us both if we got too close to her, only to have her taken away when we caught the man that killed her mother. I just have to keep telling myself that this is temporary and I cannot let myself get attached to her.

"Erin, Erin you here?" I hear through my daze.

"Yeah sorry, what's up?" I say as I come back from my daze and see Jay waving his "Car seat is strapped in and Lucy's ready to go and Voight called said they got a lead," I snap to attention as soon as those words leave his mouth.

"What did he say?" I ask as Lucy happily explores all the buckles and straps on her new seat.

"He didn't, he just said they had a lead," He says.

"Oh that's weird, should we stop by the precinct on the way home?" I ask as I eye Lucy in my rear view mirror.

"I don't know if it's a good idea to bring Lucy back there just yet," He says, "But if it's okay with you, you can drop me there on the way home and talk to Voight and I'll grab my car from the parking lot and meet you guys later,"

Okay," I say contemplating his offer, "Can you get a DCFS update from Voight while you're there?" I ask.

"Of course Er," He says as I put the car into drive.

"Luce you good to go?" I say, changing the subject as we pull out.

"Yeah," She says absentmindedly, "Where are we going this time?"

"We are going to go drop of Jay at work and then you and are going to go have some fun how does that sound?" I ask.

"Can we go to the park?" She asks, "the one with the big silver jelly bean?" She asks, rendering an image of Millennium Park and the Cloud Gate sculpture which everyone just refers to as the Bean.

"Sounds like a plan!" I say in a voice in which I've learned over the past 16 or so hours happens to be my kid voice.

"So hey Luce, you're four years old right?" She nods at me through the rear view mirror. "That's pretty cool, do you remember when you turned four?" Jay shoots me a weird look. Not clear on where I'm going with this, honestly I don't even know where I'm going with this but I wave him down anyway.

"No," she says as the wheels begin to turn in her little head, "I don't remember the number but it was hot, really hot. And the night before we went to the fireworks but Mama said we had to go home early to sleep cause I had to be rested for my birthday," She says, a smile forming on her face as she remembers that happy memory. "And then we had a mini party with just the two of us, she made a cake and it had strawberries in it. I love strawberries." She says with a little grin.

"She sounds like she was a really good mommy," I say as I look back at her.

"She was, she was the best," She says with her smile fading. I was going to go deeper, see if I could get her to tell me anything about the shooting, but right now my gut is telling me that that will end in tears.

Jay senses the tension in the little car that I've unintentionally caused.

"So Luce," he says trying to break it, "I know you said you don't like pink, but what is your favorite color?"

She bites down on one side of her lip as she contemplates an answer.

"I think I like red, like my hair. Mama always told me that my red hair was so pretty, so red, I think that's my favorite one." She backs up her response with a shake of her head.

"That's cool Luce, I like red too." He says, "You know what's red?" He teases.

"Um, apples?"

"Well yes, but not what I'm thinking of," He says as he turns to face her in her car seat.

"Lipstick?" She says, continuing her list.

"Nope, still not what I'm thinking of."

"Stoplights?"

"Nope, still wrong, but you're getting closer,"

"Jay just tell me!" She says as she lets out a giggle.

"How about fire trucks?" He says.

"Fire trucks?" She says with a sparkle in her eyes.

"Yup, fire trucks. You know Erin and I have some friends at Firehouse 51 and maybe one day if you're really good we'll take you to see them," He says.

"Really?" Her eyes wide in wonder at this point

"Really," I say back.

"I'm going to be so good," She exclaims, causing a laugh from Jay. She spends the rest of the short drive to the precinct babbling and asking about the fire trucks, they seem to have become her newest obsession.

"Alright we're here," I say as we pull up in front of the precinct.

"Where are we?" Lucy asks as she glances around with a look of confusion.

"This is the 21st Precinct, it's where Erin and I work," Jay says as he turns around. "Remember you came here last night? She shakes her head at him.

"Well she was asleep for most of it," I add.

"Why are we here?" She asks as she squirms in her car seat.

"We're going to drop off Jay because he has to go talk to our boss Hank about something."

"Why does he have to go?" She says, her lip beginning to quiver.

"Well Luce, he has to go to work to catch all the bad guys so you can be safe okay?" I say as I unbuckle and turn around to put my hand on her knee.

"But he'll be back right?" She asks, her lip shaking at this point.

"Yeah of course I'll be back," He says, " I'm going to go to talk to Hank and then I'll see you later okay?"

"Are you going to come back to Erin's house tonight?" She asks.

"Well Luce I'll see you today, but I don't know if I'll spend the night again," He says.

"Why not?" She asks.

"Because that's Erin's house and I live a little while away at my house," I say.

"Well why can't you just come to Erin's?" She asks, clearly confused.

"Well Luce you see all of my stuff is at my apartment," He says, trying to come up with more reasons.

"Well just bring it to Erin's," She says like it's the most obvious thing in the entire world.

"Well I don't kn-,"

"You know why don't you do that?" I cut him off, "Go to your place and throw some stuff in a bag and then you can stay over at my place again," I say.

"You sure?" He asks as he looks at me surprised.

"Yeah I mean we've done it before and it's what Lucy wants right?" I say, knowing that in the bottom of my heart I actually want him to stay over too.

"Okay then," He says with a grin on his face, "I guess I'll see you girls later, bye Er, bye Luce," He says as he leaves the passenger seat and jogs towards the front door of the 21st.

"Alright my dear," I say as I re-buckle my seat belt, "let's go see the Bean."


	5. Chapter 5

**Thank you for all the reviews! I really appreciate them all and I will continue to update as fast as I can. Enjoy Chapter 5!**

I shiver under my coat in the September chill, my hands clasping the smaller fingers of a little red head. I had slipped on a black pea coat from the trunk of my car and dressed Lucy in an olive green trench coat, falling right above her knees and switching out her pink ballet flats, which she has expressed to me many how much she hates them, for a pair of simple brown boots that stop right under her knee with a small heel on the sole. A smile is laced across her face and her cheeks and nose are dashed with a dusting of pink. Her bright hazel eyes sparkle and I can tell that she loves it here.

"Erin is Jay your boyfriend?" She says.

I stop dead in my tracks as I look down at her. She looks back up at me surprised, her hazel eyes wide with curiosity.

"No Luce, he's my partner, why would you think he's my boyfriend?" I ask.

"Well because my mama and dad were boyfriend and girlfriend and they sleep in the bed with me. You and Jay slept in the bed with me last night. So that must mean he's your boyfriend," She says, her science making perfect sense in her little brain.

"Baby, just because we were sleeping in the same bed with you, it doesn't mean he's my boyfriend." I say as I kneel down and put my hands on her shoulders. "We slept with you because you were sad and we wanted you to feel better. We're partners, that's all my dear," I say, trying to convince myself as much as much as her of what I was saying.

"Oh okay," She says, disappointment laced in her words. "Well I think he should be your boyfriend, he's very handsome," She says as I raise back to my normal height.

"He is very handsome Luce," I say, "But we work together sweetheart, so we can't date each other, it's a rule," I say.

"That's a dumb rule," She says with a scoff. I laugh at her bluntness under my breath.

"Maybe it is baby, but that's how it works," I say.

"Why?" She questions me.

"I don't know Luce, it just is," I say.

"Well it's still a dumb rule," She says with a shrug as I giggle.

"It probably is," I say under my breath and we continue to walk. We walk quietly through the park, hand in hand admiring all the our beautiful city has to offer. We stop at the Bean and Lucy admires her reflection in the silvery material that encases it. I take a few pictures of her without her knowing, capturing a wonderfully candid smile in the process.

I know that I've let my walls down in just a matter of hours and I know that it's going to hurt when this little girl leaves us. But I can't help it, I know that she's opened her heart to me and I've, even if I've been trying to not to, have opening my heart to her. She's gotten in and she will forever have a piece of it. So rather than fight it, I decide to accept it.

Though the Bean is extraordinarily entertaining for a short while, she swiftly gets bored with staring at herself in a monstrous mirror. She runs back to me with a skip in her step and grabs my hand from under my coat.

"Where to next?" I ask as we head down the ramp on the side of the sculpture.

"I don't know, whenever we came here we just went to the Bean," She says.

"Do you like fountains?" I ask as she shakes her head yes. "Alright then Luce, I've got the perfect place for you,"

"Okay," She says with a shrug as she follows me lead.

We effortlessly stroll through the park, the leaves changing and falling all around us. I smile as the leaves crinkle beneath my shoes and I hear giggles from my left as she crunches them too.

The feeling of normalcy returns, just me walking through the park with a little girl who may or may not be my daughter. But this time I don't fight it, I welcome it with open arms. Because even if she isn't my daughter, I've learned that I love her like I do. It's only been a day, but Camille always told me that I loved big. I didn't really know what that meant until right now. I know that sometimes I go too deep too fast and that can get me in trouble sometimes so I tend to stay guarded, but this little girl has broken through all the walls. And I for one couldn't

be more terrified yet overjoyed at the same time.

We come up upon Wrigley Square, a series of columns half surrounding a circular fountain backed by a series of skyscrapers glistening in the sunlight. The square is surprisingly empty, with just a few people lounging on the length of grass surrounding it.

"This," I say motioning to the fountain, "is one of my favorite places in Chicago, my mom used to bring me here when I was a little girl," I say thinking back to one of the few days where Bunny was capable of functioning as a mother.

"This is so cool!" She exclaims as she takes off running towards.

"Baby be careful!" I yell after her. She climbs up on the rim of the fountain and begins walking around the perimeter of the large fountain. "Don't fall!" I exclaim out of instinct.

"I won't Mommy!" She says. She realizes what she's said and stops in her tracks, looking back at me for approval. I can honestly say that I'm too shocked to do anything but wave her off and she smiles back at me and continues in her path around the fountain.

She called me Mommy. She called me Mommy. She called _me_ Mommy. I keep repeating this in my head, trying to get this to process. She must just be confused, that's the only suitable explanation for this right? She can't possible think I'm her mom, she knows she has a mom, she talks about her all the time. I run through as many scenarios as I can possibly think of and try to plan for any and all conversations that I may be about to have with this little girl.

I mean I can't tell her no can I? But then again how do I encourage this without letting her get too attached? If I get hurt when she leaves that's okay, I'll deal with it. But I can't let her get hurt. She's already had more pain in her life than anyone should.

I keep trying to keep that smile slapped on my face, while that sweet girl entertains herself with the simplicity of a circle. I take a deep breath and then I do it, my grey sneakers beginning to move before I've given them permission to and I start walking towards her. Do I have any idea what I plan on saying? Nope. But I sure as hell better figure it out pretty quickly or else I am screwed.

She sees me from across the fountain and she rushes back to where I'm sitting as I shoot her a wave and a smile. I take a seat on the rim of the fountain and pat my hand next to me, motioning to her that it's okay for her to sit down next to me.

"I'm sorry," She say as she looks down and fiddles with her hands in her lap.

"Baby why are you sorry?" I ask. "You don't have anything to be sorry for my dear," I say as I lay a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"I called you Mommy and I know I shouldn't have," She says, tears beginning to well in her eyes.

"Oh baby no," I say as I pull her into my chest, the top of her head resting under my chin. "You can call me whatever you want to," I say, the words spilling out of my mouth. "If you want to call me Mommy that's okay, you don't have to be sorry Luce." She untucks her head from my chin and looks up at me with her beautiful eyes.

"Are you sure?" She says, nerves rippling through her tiny body.

"Yeah baby I'm sure, you can call me whatever you want to and I'm going to be okay with it, okay Bean?" I say, somehow making up a new nickname in the middle.

"Are you going to be my mommy?" She asks, saying the single most difficult thing she could have.

"I don't know Bean, your mama will always be your mama, but if you need me to be your mommy right now I can do that. And I promise to take such good care of you." I say as I look into her eyes.

"Thank you," She says.

"What for Bean?" I ask.

"For taking care of me," She says, a little smile spreading across her face as her tears dry. My heart swells as she gives me that face.

"Anytime baby," I say as I hug her a little tighter. We sit on that fountain for I don't know how long, just holding each other and cherishing the moment. We only stop when I hear my cell phone vibrate in my pocket.

"Who's that?" She ask as she searches around us for my phone.

"It's just Jay," I say as I pull my phone from my pocket and glance at the caller ID. "Hey Jay, what's up," I say as I swipe to answer the call and put the glass next to my ear.

"Hey Er, so I talked to Voight and I'll update you when I get there. Also talked to him about DCFS, he put your address down for protective custody so you should be all set." He says.

"About that Jay, I need to talk to you about that when you get here, something happened," I say.

"Wait what, is she okay what's going on?" He says, panic in his voice.

"No no no Jay, she's okay everything's okay, it's a good thing and I just wanted to run it by you, don't rush getting over here." I say, trying to calm him down.

"Okay," He says tentatively, "I'm going to go run by my apartment and pack a bag and then where should I meet you?" He asks.

"Uh give me a sec, I'll ask Luce," I say as I hold the phone to my chest. "Hey baby," I say as she looks up at me, "Do you want Jay to meet us at the park or should we go back to my house?"

"I wanna go home, I'm tired," She says.

"Okay," I say as I raise the phone back up to my ear.

"She's tired, so I guess I'll meet you back at my apartment." I say.

"Okay I'll see you soon then," he says, "Do you want me to pick up lunch?"

"No," I say thinking back to the abandoned pizza in my fridge. "well just eat the leftovers from last night." I say.

"Okay see you at home, bye Er,"

"Bye Jay," I say as I hit the button to end the call. "Okay Luce, you ready to go?" I say as I slide off the rim of the fountain. She slips her hand into mine and hops off the ledge.

We stroll through the park, getting lost in the charming colors of the fall. Lucy runs ahead of me, trying to crunch all the leaves she can beneath her petite feet. I smile, seeing her so happy. She's been through more trauma in the past twenty four hours then most people experience in a whole lifetime, and here she is, crunching leaves under her boots with a huge smile on her face, not a care in the world.


	6. Chapter 6

"Hey Luce," I say as I turn my head towards her, "I'm going to go talk to Jay for a second in my room, will you be okay for a second?" We'd just gotten home from the park and I'd settled her at the island in the kitchen with a slice of heated up pizza for lunch. Jay had just walked in through the front door and I decided to swipe him quickly before her was distracted by Lucy's cuteness.

"Okay," She says, clearly distracted by her pizza. I grab Jay's hand as he drops his bag by the front door. I pull him towards my bedroom as he gives a quick wave towards Lucy.

"Erin what happened?" He asks as soon as we're safely behind a closed door.

"It can wait, what did Voight say?" I ask anxiously.

"Well first he asked how you were do-," He starts.

"Yeah yeah of course he did," I say quickly, cutting him off, "What was that lead they were talking about?" I ask.

"It ended up being a dud, someone saw a car leaving the scene and they got the license plate but it ended up being completely bogus, as usual. Anyway the team is reaching out to their CIs to see if anyone knew who McGovern was in deep with, do you have any CIs that might know anything?" He says.

"I've got a few people that might know something, I'll shoot them a text and see if I get anything back. And we're all good with DCFS?"I ask, just reconfirming what he told me earlier.

"Yeah, a social worker showed up to the district after we left. Voight talked to her and she gave her all your information so they know where she is. They also gave us some more information on her, she was born on July 5, 2012 at Northwestern, grandparents are both dead and they haven't found any recorded relatives. According to neighbors, Paul hadn't been living with Hannah and Lucy for quite a while before his death. " He says.

"So she'll go into the system," I say with a sigh of disdain as I run my fingers through my hair.

"Yeah, she probably will," He says as he looks down at his shoes. We stand there in silence, neither of us really knowing what to say until Jay breaks it.

"So what did you have to tell me Erin?" He asks.

"Jay she called me Mommy," I say quietly.

"She called you what?" He says, obviously stunned.

"Mommy," I whisper, "She called me Mommy," I say, looking up at him for the first time.

"What do you mean she called you Mommy?" He says, his words slightly broken as he tries to process my surprising statement.

"We were in the park and I told her to be careful and she just looks back at me and says I will Mommy," I say trying to explain what had happened to him.

"What did you say to her?" He asks. His face is a blank page, I can't read his emotions at all.

"I told her that she could call me whatever she wanted to. I said that her mama would always be her mama, but it she needed to call me mommy she could do that and it would be her call." I say as he stares at me in shock and before I know it, I've started to cry. I don't know why it's happening but it does. "I'm sorry Jay, that wasn't the right thing to tell her, I just didn't know what to say," I choke out as I stand there crying like an idiot.

"No, no, no Erin," He says as he pulls me into a hug, "You said exactly the right thing, I was just surprised that's why I didn't say anything. You did great Erin," He says as he rubs my back.

"Are you sure?" I ask, breaking his hold to look up at him.

"Yeah Erin, I'm sure, you did great," He says.

"What if she doesn't have to go into the system?" I say, suddenly changing the subject.

"What?" He says, looking down at me.

"What if I adopt her?" I say.

"Adopt her?" He says, shock plastered across his face. "Don't you think this is a little bit sudden? I mean Erin you've known her for a day," He says.

"I know its sudden, I know that believe me, but I've thought about it, She has no one, her entire family is dead and she's alone in the world, no one deserves to be alone. She just needs someone, someone to love her and someone to care, what if I can be the someone she need?" I state as I stare into his blue eyes.

"Are you sure Erin?" He says as he stares back at me.

"No," I answer truthfully, "I'm not and this might be a hot mess and it might not work but I have to try Jay, I just have to," I ramble.

"Okay Erin, I get it, I understand." He says as he pulls me back in for a hug. I breathe a sigh of relief. It feels safe and comforting in his arms. "Have you said anything to her?" He ask, me still wrapped tight in his embrace.

"No," I say truthfully, "I haven't really thought about it until just now. But I can't let her go into the system Jay, I've seen what happens to kid once they're in, I just can't let that happen to her. She's too little and too sweet and too innocent. She deserves to be loved," I finish.

"Erin, if this is what you really want, I will help you," He says.

"You will?" I ask, tears welling in my eyes again. I can feel the lump in my throat and the shaking of my bottom lip.

"Of course I will Erin, I'm your partner, I have your back 24/7, that's how we do things," He says, a smile spread across his face.

"How do I even do this?" I ask, suddenly realizing the magnitude of what I've decided to take on.

"Well first you should become a foster parent and Platt has friends at DCFS so you should be able to get her to expedite that because she loves you or whatever. And then once you've fostered her for a while, file adoption papers." He says.

"God you make it sound so simple Jay," I say as I pull away.

"Well you know it won't be easy, but you're a cop, you know people or know people who people everywhere, you can do this Erin," He encourages me.

"Oh my god Jay I'm going to be the worst mother, I had the worst mother what made me think I could do this," I say as I panic, my heart rate speeding up and my mind starting to spin.

"Hey hey Erin relax," He says as he grabs my shoulders, "You are going to be fine, I've seen her with you, she adores you and she couldn't have been luckier getting caught up with you," I start to calm down, or at least starting to tell myself that I'm calming down.

"Thank you Jay," I say, my voice breaking a little bit.

"Anytime Er," He says as he pulls me back in. "So go see that little girl," I smile weakly back up at him and put my hand on top of his on my shoulder. I turn around and head towards the door. I turn around before I exit.

"Thanks again Jay," I say.

"Don't mention it Lindsay," I feel the smile creeping into my face as my tears dry. I pull open the door and wipe away the remaining tears splattered around my cheeks.

"Hey baby," I say as I walk over to the island.

"Mommy, what were you talking to Jay about?" She asks.

"Just some work stuff Luce, don't worry about it," I say as I lay a hand on her shoulder.

"Okay," She says with a shrug as she goes back to eating her pizza. Jay follows me out of the bedroom and takes a seat next to Lucy on a bar stool.

"Erin do you want go down to the district and talk to Platt and probably let Voight in on what's going on," Jay hints.

"Um yeah that would probably be a good idea,"I say, thinking about it. "Bean are you okay to stay here with Jay for a little while? I've got to go talk to some people at the district," I tell her.

"Okay," She says looking up at me, "you'll be back right?"She asks.

"Yeah Luce, of course I'll be back," I say as I yank on a pair of boots.

"She'll only be gone like an hour," Jay adds in. "And we'll have fun Luce, we can watch a movie or build a fort,"

"We can build a fort?" She cuts in, her eyes wide with wonder.

"We sure can," He says with a grin.

"Okay well Bean have fun with Jay and I'll be back soon," I say as I lean over and plant a kiss on her head. I grab my phone and wallet from their place on the kitchen counter and my keys from the dish near the door before pulling my jacket over my t-shirt.

"Bye baby, I'll see you soon," I say as I slip out the door,

"Bye Mommy!" She yells back at me as I leave. I smile hearing that, I never thought I would have a child calling me Mommy. I also never thought it make me so happy. But sometimes life's greatest joys come in surprising ways and I think she just might be mine.

The smile stays with me as I descend down the four flights of stairs that I usually complain about. It stays with me all the way to my car and all the way to the 21st District.

"What are you smiling at cheery?" Platt bellows as I walk through the front door.

"Oh just coming to talk to Hank," I say as I punch in the code and the scanner reads my palm.

"Okay we'll have fun with that," She says as she goes back to flipping through whatever's she reading and the metal door buzzes open. I climb the ever so familiar stairs to the bullpen.

"Yo Lindsay, how's the kid?" Ruzek yells from his desk.

"She's good," I say with a quick smile as I continue walking towards Voight's office.

"Aren't you supposed to be off?" Antonio says questioningly as I walk by him.

"Yeah," I say with a nod towards him, "I just had to have a quick talk with Voight then I'm right back to Jay and Luce,"

"Alright," He says as he spins around in his chair.

I move towards Voight's office and knock on the open door before I walk in.

"Hey kid, what are you doing here? I thought I gave you and Halstead a couple days off?"

"You did," I say as I take a seat in one of the two chairs in front of his desk.

"So what the hell are you doing here?" He asks in his gruff tongue.

"I want to do something and it might be really dumb and I don't know so I wanted to talk to you first, but even if you say know I'll probably still do it because this is what and I want and I think it could be really good for m-," I start.

"Lindsay stop rambling what's up?" He asks.

"I want to foster and maybe adopt Lucy," I blurt out.

"You want to do what?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Sorry it's been so long since I've updated! Hope you guys enjoy chapter 7 and please review!**

"I want to foster and eventually adopt Lucy," I repeat, this time slowly and a bit louder.

"Erin are you sure," He says, "You've only known this girl for a day," I silently prepare myself to defend myself and give him the same speech I gave to Jay just a little while ago.

"I know Hank, I know that I've only known her for a day, that is abundantly clear to me, but she's alone, she has no family and if I don't take her, she'll go into the system. You know what happened to Teddy in the foster care system, I can't let that happen to her," I watch his face soften a bit as I mention my brother. "I won't able to live with myself if I let her go and something happens to her, that just can't happen," I say, quickly realizing that I'm yelling.

"Erin relax, I understand," He says as he holds up his hand in a gesture for me to shut up.

"You do?" I say, my voice breaking and face relaxing.

"Erin why do you think I took you in?" He asks.

"I've never really thought about it," I answer truthfully.

"Because I wanted you to be safe kid," He says. I smile back at him as my lip begins shake slightly.

"I don't say thank you enough for that Hank," I say.

"You don't need to Lindsay, you know you were on of the best things that happened to me, I needed you as much as you needed you," I was trying my best to hold back my tears.

"Hank I don't even know if I can do this,"

"You can do this, don't worry about it, it'll come naturally once you start. You'll do great kid," He says with a grin.

"Thanks Hank," I say with a weak smile.

"Okay so what are you going to do?" He asks, flipping a switch on me.

"Well," I say as I wipe my eyes. "Jay told me to talk to Platt, he said that she has friends over at DCFS so I thought I should talk to her," I say.

"Good plan Lindsay, Platt has her hands everywhere, she'll be able to get the process sped up," He says.

"Yeah that's what I figured," I says.

"Well," He says as he stands up, "good luck Erin, now get out of here,"

"Thanks Hank," I say with a side smile as I leave his office.

"Bye guys," I wave as I almost bounce out of the bullpen.

"Bye Lindsay," Ruzek says behind me. I can tell there's a smirk on his face in reaction to my obscenely happy attitude, but I really don't care. I float down the steps from the bullpen, through the gates and find myself standing in front of Platt's desk.

"Still smiling cheery?" She asks as I smirk back at her.

"Still smiling," I confirm, "So I needed to talk to you about something," I say, trying to allow my mind to catch up to the words spilling from my mouth.

"What?" She says, focusing back on her magazine.

"You know people over at DCFS right?" I ask.

"I know people everywhere Lindsay, what do you want?" She says, her patience clearing lessening.

"I'm looking into fostering a child, how would I do that?" I say. That definitely surprised her. Her eyes rise up to my level and her eyebrow raises.

" _You_ want to foster a child?" She questions.

"Yep," I say without missing a beat.

"You want to foster a child?" She asks again, this time emphasizing each word and saying them slower, maybe to make them make sense.

"Yes Sergeant, I want to foster a child. Her name's Lucy, Jay and I took her home last night." I state to her.

"Oh o-okay," She stutters back to me, realizing I'm not screwing with her. "So you would have to fill out an application to foster her, she's in your custody right now right?" I nod back at her and motion for her to continue. "And then you would complete a home study from a social worker before they would officially declare you her foster parent. She doesn't have another other family right? Because you know it'll be their first priority to release her to family," She says.

"I know," I say nodding back at her, "Mouse has been looking into her family and as far as we know neither of the parents had siblings and both sets of grandparents are dead," I say.

"Well that's a good first step," She says, "I can reach out to a few people and follow this through," She says as she reaches down into her desk. "This is the foster application," She says, slamming a large pile of paperwork onto the Formica counter tops in between us. "Fill this out and bring it back to me and I will get it to Jillian Barker, she a social worker, a pretty good one, we've used her before, she'll take good care of you," She says as she slides the paperwork over to me.

"Thanks Sarge," I say as I grab the stack off the counter. "Oh also could you not tell anyone about this yet, I've only told Jay and Hank and I'd like to tell the rest of the unit myself." I ask.

"No problem," She says.

I turn to walk out of the building when her voice stops me.

"Lindsay," She says as I turn around and look back at her, " good luck,"

"Thank you," I say quietly, but sincerely as I walk towards the ever so familiar exit of the 21st.

"Hey Erin," Burgess says as she walks in. Roman stands mute behind her, his thumbs interlaced in one another absentmindedly. "Whatcha got there?" She asks, pointing to the fairly thick stack of papers cradled under my left arm.

"Oh just some paperwork," I say, briskly brushing it off.

"Okay," She says as she shrugs her shoulders and continues into the 21st. I flash her a small smile before departing on my way.

I push open the doors into the crisp autumn cool and shove my hands into the pockets of my jacket. I feel around for my keys and my fingers collide with the ridges of the chilled and sculpted metal.

My hands emerge from the warm confines of the pockets grasping the ring that hold the keys. The car beeps back at me in response to the press of a button. I make my way over to the 300 and pull open the driver's door and plop myself in the front seat.

I haphazardly toss the foster application in the passenger seat, I'll have to talk to Jay about them later once we put Lucy down for the night.

I press the keys into the ignition and listen to the rumble of the engine as it prepares itself to run. I push the car into gear and steer out of my parking spot, zooming towards home.

That same stupid smile stays plastered on my face as I wind through the streets of the city I love. My heart hasn't stopped pounding or leaping with joy all day, this is the most terrifying yet amazing thing I've ever even attempted. I drive my fear down to the bottom of my chest as I pull up to the building.

I push open the front door of the 300 and continue down the block to the front door of building and pull open the glass doors. I return to the four flights of stairs and begin the trek to the fourth floor.

I reach my apartment door and unlock the door as I reach for the doorknob. The metal feels new and foreign in my hands, yet familiar as I know that this is home. I hear the door crack open and push it to see the scene waiting for me in my apartment.

To my surprise, I see Jay sitting alone on the couch, sipping a beer, with a finished fort splayed across my living room floor in front of him. He looks over at me as he too the opening of the door.

"Uh Jay," I start, "Where is my child?" I ask as I place the paperwork on the table by the door. I surprise myself the word "my" has just come out of my mouth but I don't fight it.

"Asleep, she kept telling me she didn't take an afternoon nap, but she fell asleep in the fort so I put her in the bed,"

"Oh okay," I say as a I grab a beer from my fridge and join Jay on the couch. I plop myself down next to him and pop open the bottle.

"So how'd it go with Platt?" He says after taking a swig of a beer.

"Good," I say, taking a sip of my own. "I talked to Voight too," I say.

"Really?" He says surprised, "What did he have to say about all of this," He asks.

"He was happy for me I think," I say. "He wasn't against it, which is pretty good for Voight I guess," He nods his head in silent agreement. "How'd things go with Luce?" I ask, switching the conversation over to his afternoon.

"She was great, she ate some pizza, we built this incredible fort," He says gesturing to the arrangement of pillows, sheets, and blankets currently taking over my living room. "we had some fun and then she fell asleep," He says with a chuckle. "She's the sweetest little girl,"

"I know," I say with a little smile, an image of her smiling face forming in my mind. "So Platt gave me this huge stack of paperwork, but she said she'd get it filed for me after I fill it out," I say gesturing to the stack of paperwork on the table.

"Wow," He says in response, "that was quick,"

"Yeah I know," I say staring off into the distance. "She seemed surprised but I don't really care what Platt thinks," I say, taking a sip of the beer.

"Good," He says, "you shouldn't,"

"Voight thought it was a good idea which was all I really cared about," I say.

"Would have not done it if he said it was a bad idea?" He asks. I mull this over in my mind,

"Well no, I don't think I would have backed off, but it still feels good to know he's not totally against it." I say.

"Yeah I get where you're coming from." He says, we sit there in comfortable silence, drinking beer and contemplating this choice I've just made.

"Okay Jay," I say, breaking the lull in the room, "What is your role going to be in her life? Because she need stability, I'm not going to let you come into her life just to run out a few months later," I assert.

"I don't really know how I'm going to fit here," He says honestly, "But no matter what Erin, if you are here with her, I will be here by your side, I can't tell you much else, but I can tell you that,"

"Do you want to be her dad?" I ask quietly.

"I don't know Erin, I really don't, but I'll be here,I'll always be here," He says back to me.

"You promise Jay?" I plead.

"Lindsay have I ever lied to you?" He says with a grin.

"No, no you haven't," I say, swinging my head to the side in an attempt to hide a faint blush.

"Are you blushing Lindsay?" He teases.

"No," I say defensively.

"Oh you where," He says with a smirk as I shoot him a glare. "It's not your fault Lindsay, I'm very charming,"

"Don't flatter yourself Halstead," I say.

"Oh I'm just stating the truth," He says, that stupid smile still plastered all across his face. I make a face at him before whacking him across the shoulder. He chuckles and before I know it I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe and I couldn't tell you why.

"Erin," He says as our laughter dies down.

"What?" I respond.

"Do you think we could have ever worked if we weren't partners?" He asks, a memory of the two of us at my almost high school reunion forming in my mind.

"Maybe," I say genuinely. "I still think about it sometimes,"

"About what?" He asks, turning to look at me.

"What would have happened if we hadn't stopped ourselves that night," I say.

"Yeah I do too," He says. I can see in his eyes that he's replaying the memories of that night.

"Do you think we would have made it?" I ask, honestly wanting to know what he would say.

"I like to think we would have," He says with wonder in his eyes. My eyes are opening to all of this. Jay and I in a relationship has always been something lingering in the back of my mind but it's never been something we've actually discussed, just believing that it's always been off the table.

"I think we would have," I say as a smile spreads across his face. "Have you ever thought about trying it?" I ask.

"Try what?" He says.

"Try us, see if we work," I say. I can see the smile that his face held being quickly replaced by a look of pure shock laced with touches of fear.

"What made you say that?" He asks, surprise threaded through his words.

"This morning Lucy asked if we we're dating and I told her we weren't and then she asked why. I realized that I couldn't really think of a solid reason." I reveal.

"Uh what about Voight?" He asks.

"Hank is the closest thing I have to a father, but it's not fair for him to bench me from being with certain people. He pardoned Burgess and Ruzek remember?"

"Er, Burgess got shot. Do you want to get shot?" He asks.

"No Jay, that would be dumb, but I think that we should see if we have something, Voight can deal with it," I say.

"Erin why now?" He asks.

"Because life is short, we see life taken away from people way too early everyday but it didn't realize how easily life could be taken away until I saw Lucy alone, quivering in that closet. So now I'm doing what I want to do and I'll deal with the consequences lat-"

"Erin stop," He says holding his hand up, "I get it, I understand,"

"Good," I say quickly, "because I have been waiting so long to do this," I don't wait for a response before I let my lips crash into his.


	8. Chapter 8

"What was that for?" He asks as our lips part.

"I don't know," I say, "it felt right," He smiles at me before placing another light kiss on my lips. And again it feels right, like is what should have happened so long ago. I feel my heart swell and the butterflies in my stomach are aflutter.

"Well what was that one for?" I ask with a grin.

"I wanted to kiss you," He says obviously. I smile back at him and stare into those blue eyes, the same eyes I've found myself caught in so many times.

"We'll you're pretty good at it Halstead," I say with a smirk as I pull away.

"So I've been told," He says with a grin.

"Oh shut up," I say as I whack him with a pillow.

"So we're really going to try this?" He asks, instantly changing the demeanor of the room.

"Yeah," I say, trying to appear certain, but in my mind being more uncertain than I can ever remember, "We're really going to try this."

xxx

It's been three weeks since I got Lucy and since that kiss in my apartment and things are actually going pretty well. Lucy's foster papers went through and she's now officially my foster daughter. I got her enrolled in a preschool near the district and she's been adjusting as well as can

be expected. She was having nightmares for the first couple weeks, but luckily they've stopped and we've been able to transition her back into her own bed. The men who shot her mother were caught and safely behind bars awaiting trial. Jay and I have been doing good too. We decided that it would be best not to tell her until we knew what we were doing and Jay has successfully convinced me not to tell Voight for fear of him being killed.

He's been staying here every night, Lucy just thinks we're having sleepovers with her and luckily hasn't caught on and we've been careful at work, trying not to show anything but I could tell Kim knew something was up. She always knows.

But luckily, to my knowledge at least, Voight did not. I know that he can read me better than almost anyone, but apparently he doesn't this time. Either that or he knows and doesn't care. Who am I kidding, of course he doesn't know, if he did Jay's body would be at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

It's a normal Monday morning, Jay and I reeling from the early wake up time after a lazy weekend and Lucy's never ending bursts of energy filling the apartment.

"Good morning!" She cries as she jumps in between us in my bed, the darkness of night still falling through my blinds.

"Luce what did we say about the wake up calls," Jay says as he tiredly sits up. Even though legally I was supposed to parent her, Jay is always helping. Something I greatly appreciate as I often will cave with her.

"That I shouldn't do them anymore and I should wait until the clock says six three zero," She says with a touch of sass. She's going to be trouble I can already tell.

"And what does the clock say now?"

"Six two four," She says sheepishly.

"That's right!" He says with a sarcastic tone. "So what does that mean?"

"That I should still be in my bed," She says with an eye roll. I smile with my face still halfway hidden in the pillow as I listen to their disciplinary banter.

"Jay it's fine," I say as I sit up. "Our alarm is going to go off in 6 minutes anyway, let's just chill with her." I see those infamous puppy eyes come out, staring right to Jay's heart. I stifle a giggle as she goes full force and sticks out her bottom lip.

"Fine!" He exclaims as succumbs to her pleas.

"Yay!" She exclaims as she plops herself in my lap.

"Well good morning my dear! You seem to be in a particularly good mood today!" I say in my breathy morning voice.

"It's share day!" She announces with even more excitement.

"Oh well what are you going to share with the class?" I ask her, eager to fuel her excitement.

"Wait," She nearly yells as she launches off the bed and darts towards her bedroom. Jay glances over at me with a look of confusion and I throw my hands in the air, not knowing what she's about to run in here.

"Better be good!" Jay yells after her.

She races back into my bedroom, her fiery hair trailing behind her with a wispy piece of paper in between her tiny fingers.

"What do we have here?" I say as I pull her back onto my lap. Jay scoots over from his side of the bed to look over my shoulder at Lucy's creation. I see a series of three very disproportionate stick figures, but I can't help but smile.

"Well this is me," She says as she points to a stick figure drawn in purple with long curling red hair. "That's you," She says pointing to a taller figure with short brown hair on her left. "And that's Daddy," I instantly look over at Jay, searching for his reaction to her words. At first his face is plastered in shock, but that look of pure surprise is soon replaced with a giant smile.

"Well I love it Bean," I say with a huge smile, knowing Jay probably isn't able to form words right now.

"Thank you!" She exclaims, "I worked super hard on it,"

"I can tell Luce," Jay says.

"I'm bored," She decides after a few seconds of silence, "Can we start getting ready?"

"Why not," Jay says with a sigh as he throws the blankets back. "Er I showered last night so do you want to hop in and I'll do breakfast for Luce,"

"Okay I'll be quick and then swap out with you and get her dressed while you get ready,"

"Alright divide and conquer,"

"Divide and conquer," I confirm with a smile as I release myself from under Lucy. She hops off the bed and grabs Jay's hand.

"So what are we making for breakfast?" Jay asks as they leave the bedroom hand in hand.

"Pancakes Daddy duh," She responds.

"Oh of course pancakes, what else would it be," He says, their voices fading into the background. I smile at the familiar domesticity of all this. Not just the fact that we've gotten fairly good as functioning as a family, but the fact that it doesn't feel foreign anymore. It's comfortable. The fear that consumed me when I decided to take her in is totally gone, replaced by a complete and utter love for this little girl.

I slide out from the warm covers and onto the frigid hardwood of my apartment floors. I move quickly, grabbing skinny jeans , a white t-shirt, and a red flannel that I not so discreetly stole from Jay. I push the drawer closed and make my way to the bathroom. I pull open the shower door and yank the handle, turning it almost to the hottest setting. A hot steam shower sounds perfect right now. I strip off my clothes and leave them abandoned in a pile on the cool tile floor. I hop into the shower, the hot water providing a much needed stress release.

I shower quickly, not wanting to waste any time. I jump out of the shower and wrap a towel around my body before grabbing my blow dryer from a drawer in the vanity and turning it onto the highest heat.

Before long I'm ready for the day, hair curled, dressed, and minimal makeup applied. I make my way out of the bedroom and enter the kitchen to see my boyfriend and my foster daughter giggling in the kitchen as they sit together eating her favorite food.

"Having fun my dear," I say I as walk over and plant a kiss on the top of her head.

"Daddy makes pancakes better than you," She says as she looks up at me. I let a look of mock hurt cover my face as Jay smirks at me.

"I told you I was a better cook than your mommy didn't I?" He tells her.

"You were right," She says with a laugh as she attempts to cut up her pancakes.

"Well I may not be a great cook, but I am the better driver," I say with a smirk as I pull out a stool from under the island.

"Hey, I'm a great driver, you just won't ever let me drive!" He says, throwing his hands up in defense.

"Well maybe if you sucked less I'd let you drive," I shoot back. Lucy giggles at our banter before returning her attention back to her almost finished pancakes.

"Is that my shirt?" He says with questioning eyes as he realizes what I'm wearing.

"Maybe?" I say sheepishly.

"Sharing is caring," Lucy states with authority as she stares him down.

"Yep," I agree quickly, "Sharing is caring," He starts laughing and soon enough I've joined him.

"Oh Jay you should go get ready," I say glancing at the clock, "we've got to get going,"

"Oh shoot you're right," He says as he pushes away from the table and jogs back into the bedroom.

"You done Luce?" I ask, looking down at her empty plate.

"Yep," She says pushing it back. I make a mental note to clean that later.

"Alright babe, let's get you dressed," I say as I pull her off the stool and settle her on my hip, her long red hair brushing against my shoulders. She giggles and plays with my freshly curled hair as I make our way over to her bedroom.

Over the past couple weeks, my guest room had gone through a bit of a transformation. The formerly white bedspread had been replaced by a red one laced with white polka dots and hand drawn pictures were scattered across the light grey walls. Several frames containing photos of Lucy or the three of us are littered across her dresser as well as an old photo of her mom that had a permanent home on her bedside table.

"What do you want to wear today?" I ask as I pull open her closet doors. Jay and I may have gone a little overboard with the clothes, probably buying the entire children's section at Target. Plus Kim had given me boxes and boxes of hand me downs from her niece so Lucy's closet was stuffed to the brim.

She walks under my arm and yanks down a pair of light wash jeans and a simple navy blue t - shirt, covered in a sprinkling of cat face silhouettes in a myriad of colors. I help her take off her pajamas and change her into her outfit of choice.

"Can you french braid my hair Mommy?" She asks. I sigh, this not being one of my favorite tasks.I had never really been good at braiding, but having a four year old running around, I was forced to learn quickly.

"Why not," I sigh as I pat a spot on her bed, motioning for her to sit down in front of me. She happily concurs and takes her place on the side of the bed. I reach over to her dresser and grab her hairbrush as well as two tiny hair ties.

"So you excited for share day?" I ask as I brush through her light red hair.

"So excited Mama, I get to share my picture," She says with a huge smile.

"I know you worked super hard on that," I say as I pull sections of her relatively tangle free hair into the french braids. "Baby can I ask why you drew yourself purple?" I say as conjure up an image of her drawing.

"Well," She says, "Purple is awesome and I'm awesome. So I'm purple," I laugh at her simple statement, wishing that I was allowed that kind of innocence at her young age.

"That's true Bean, you are awesome," I say with a smile. I listen to her generally nonsensical babble as I plait the rest of her fiery hair into the two simple braids.

"Good to go," I tell her as I loop the second hair tie onto the bottom of the braid.

"Thanks Mama," She declares as she slides off her bed.

"I'm going to go pack your lunch and you're going to go brush your teeth got it?" She nods back at me and heads towards the main bathroom. I follow her out but split off at the main hallway, instead heading for kitchen. I pull out all the stuff to make her lunch and finish quickly, I've gotten pretty good at it lately. I grab a banana and quickly eat it, deciding that I'll grab something else at the district if I get hungry.

I'm lacing up my boots when Jay emerges from the bedroom, clad in a Henley and jeans, his usual outfit.

"We all set?" He asks as he pulls on his shoes.

"Yup, little miss is just brushing her teeth and picking out shoes, which actually seems to be taking a long time now that I think about it." I say, racking my brain for how long she's been in there.

"I grab her," He says turning towards her room. He emerges with a giggling child thrown over his shoulder, red converse covered feet dangling and kicking against his chest and her drawing clasped in her hands. I laugh at the image, reminiscent of several mornings in what had become the Halstead-Lindsay household.

"Daddy put me down!" She squeals as her little feet begin to move faster. He lets out a chuckle before lowering her to the ground with a grunt. She is lost in a fit of giggles as I throw her lunch box into her waiting backpack and sling it over my shoulder. I grab my phone from the kitchen counter top and shove it into my back pocket.

"We got everything?" He asks as he picks up our giggling girl from the ground, placing her firmly on her feet.

"Crap no," I say as my hand flies to the waistline of my jeans. "Guns and badges," He signs before turning on his heels and heading back towards the bedroom, knowing the location of the safe in my closet where we both store them.

"Got 'em," He shouts back from my bedroom as I hear the click of the safe closing. He returns to the kitchen and hands me my gun and I strap the holster to my waist line and shove the badge on as he does the same.

"Okay we've got lunch and backpack, guns, badges, and shoes, we need a jacket for Luce and then we should be good to go," I say as I mentally tick things off of our checklist.

"Alright what coat do you want today?" Jay asks, motioning to the coat rack filled with several of her jackets.

"Red one," She says pointing to a red and black checkered coat given to us by Kim, "I want to match Mama," My heart swells at her words and I can tell that Jay knows that.

"Alright matching it is," He says as he reaches over to grab it. It's not too cool here yet and Jay and I can usually manage without them, but that child is always cold. I swear it's like she has been raised in Los Angeles not Chicago. Or maybe it's the fact that Jay and I are basically polar bears. Yeah that's probably it.

He hands off the jacket to her and she slips it over her arms.

"Ready!" She says proudly as she finishes.

"Alright then Bean, let's get going," I say. She grabs Jay's hand and we stroll out the door, me stopping to grab my wallet and car keys from the table by the front door.

I follow my two favorite people out the front door of my apartment but not before turning around to lock it. I watch from behind as she tells him her jokes that only kind of make sense that he laughs at anyway and they way she stares at him with admiration in her eyes. This is how life should be, and how lucky I am to have it.

 **So for now it's going to be a lot of fluff, just keeping things light and happy with Erin, Jay, and Lucy. But in a few chapters, the drama dial will be turned up about 436 percent. Also just a question for you all, would you be interesting in seeing some things written in Jay's perspective? Let me know in the reviews. Thank you to everyone that continues to read and review this story, it means a lot to me. Love to you all, Addison**


	9. Chapter 9

"Bye babe have a good day!" I call after her as she rushes to join her friends. She stops to wave back at me and I blow her a little kiss.

"You've been doing such a good job with her," I hear a voice behind me say. I turn to see the blonde hair of the owner of Lucy's preschool, a kind woman named Jenna. She knew Lucy's background and our unique situation. "She's been opening up so much, she was like a locked box when she first came in,"

"Thank you," I say with a smile, "but I can't take all of the credit, you guys have been so amazing, she raves about you every day when we pick her up."

"She makes it easy, she's a great kid," She says with a smile.

"Yeah," I say softly as my mind begins to drift, "we got really lucky with her,"

"You did," She responds quietly.

"Sorry I would love to chat but we've got to get to work," I say as I break my trance and take a glance at the clock above the sign in desk.

"Yeah no problem! Will you be picking her up today?" She asks.

"Not sure yet, it'll be either me or Jay,"

"Okay then I guess maybe I'll see you tonight!" She says with a smile. I wave back at her and make my way through the glass doors. Jenna is super happy and perky all of the time and it can get annoying at times, but it's always kinda nice to know that I'll always get a shot of sunshine very early in the morning.

I pull open the door of the 300 and as soon as I sit down I'm immediately greeted with a kiss.

"What was that for?" I say with a laugh.

"Erin I get like fifteen minutes a day to actually be your boyfriend, if you don't think I'm going to take advantage of that, you're wrong." I smile back at him before planting another one on him.

"You know we wouldn't have to hide it if you would just let me tell Voight…" I say with a spark in my eyes.

"Oh no," He says, "we are so not telling Voight, that man would slaughter me,"

"Well then I guess you'll just have to deal with your fifteen minutes," I say with a smirk.

"Well played Lindsay," His statement is met with a laugh from me as I reach over to buckle my seatbelt. I pull out of my spot in front of her preschool and drive towards the 21st District.

"So she called you Dad," I prod as I drive, "how are you feeling about that?" He sighs.

"I don't know, I figured it was coming, she's been with us for a few weeks and she called you Mommy on like the second day,"

"Well I can tell you that you took it a lot better than I did, I freaked out," I say with a chuckle.

"Well I had the luxury of seeing it coming, she hit you out of nowhere,"

"Yeah," I agree, "But just like wait a couple days, it still feels pretty amazing every time she says it, but it doesn't feel weird anymore,"

"Yeah I'm waiting for that part, cause right now it feel pretty freaking weird to have a child look up at me and say daddy," He says with a scoff.

"Well you've been acting as her dad for going on a month now and she's four, it was bound to happen," I say.

"Yeah I know," He responds, "and I guess I always kinda knew that it was coming and I thought I prepared myself for it-"

"But then she said it and you didn't you what to do with yourself," I cut him off.

"Yeah sounds about right," He says with a couple quick nods.

"Yeah that tends to happen," I say with a laugh. "But I mean you've been doing a pretty kick ass job parenting her already, so just think of it as a title, nothing has changed,"

"That actually helps," He responds.

"Thought it would," I say with a chuckle as we near the District.

"Ugh we're almost there," He says with a groan.

"What are you complaining about?" I say with a laugh, "I thought you loved being a cop,"

"I do," He says, "But as soon as we walk through those doors you stop being Erin my girlfriend and you become Detective Lindsay my partner who I have been forbidden to date by my very scary boss who is also kind of her dad,"

"You know we're going to have to tell him about us at some point right,"

"I know," He whines as we pull into the parking lot, "But it's so much easier when he doesn't know," He says, his demeanor reminding me on a whining child.

"Yeah," I agree, "it's like our own happy little bubble," I don't even want to think about Voight would do if he found about Jay and I. He's made it perfectly clear since we became partners that I was strictly off limits.

"And before we tell Voight we should probably tell Lucy," He says as I park the car in our designated spot.

"Yeah, I've hated keeping this secret from her but I felt it was best, just while we figure things out," I say as I get out of the 300.

"I think we should tell her soon." He says as he props open his door.

"You do?" I ask him over the roof of the car.

"Yeah, we made that decision when we didn't know what we were, we were unstable. I think we're fairly secure now,"

"Oh okay," I say as I gain positive insight on where he thinks we stand. "Maybe tonight?"

"Yeah that sounds good," He agrees. "Plus I think she'll take it pretty well, she's not the one I'm worried about,"

We walk up the steps to the precinct and he pulls open the door for me. I smile up at him, knowing that this is the last little sign of affection we'll be able to show for several hours for fear of being caught.

Our little bubble is popped very quickly by the presence of one Trudy Platt.

"Lindsay, Halstead get upstairs Voight's got a case," We both nod her off and head quickly up the steps to the Intelligence bullpen.

"Lindsay, Halstead nice of you to join us!" Voight shouts in his signature gruff.

"Sorry," I string out as we both take our places at our desks, "We had to drop the Luce off and we hit some traffic,"

"Oh yeah how's the kid doing?" Ruzek asks.

"She's great," Voight answers for us, "now we have a case to solve so let's get to it."

"She's doing good," I say to Ruzek as I roll my eyes at Voight.

"You done?" He says to me as I roll my eyes again and nod.

"Yes I'm done," I say annoyed as I look over at him, "What have we got this time?"

"Sawyer and Zoey Lacen," He says as he slaps two photos on the board. My heart winces, ever since taking in Lucy, cases involving kid have been hitting me a little bit harder than usual. I know that this case with be especially hard, considering these two girls look a hell of a lot like my sweet girl. "Five year old identical twin girls, snatched from the Chicago Children's Museum on a Sutton Academy field trip yesterday at around 1:30. The parents are Kate and James Lacen, they are the ones that just called this in. Now normally this wouldn't come to us, but their mom Kate, she's an ADA, put away a lot of bad people, so we've got this one." He finishes.

"Why are we just getting this now?" Jay asks as he lays back in his chair.

"The Lacen got a call saying they wanted a ransom of $400,000, but if they called the police they would make Sawyer shoot Zoey," Mouse intercepts. I wince at the scene quickly forming in my head.

"Alright so where do we start?" Ruzek asks.

"Halstead, Lindsay go the Lacen's, Mouse will text you the address. Ruzek and Olinsky go to Sutton Academy and talk to the teacher and get the names of whoever was with either of the girls yesterday, Antonio and I are going to go the museum and see what we can get from any cameras or employees. Got it?" The entire squad nods at him and moves to begin our assignments.

"You okay?" He says quietly as we walk down the stairs of the bullpen, knowing how these cases have always affected me and exactly what I'm thinking right now.

"No," I say as I look him in those blue eyes, "none of this is okay," He takes my tone as a hint and reaches over to squeeze my hand, careful not to let anyone catch him. We spend the rest of the short walk to the car in silence.

Once we turn the corner to avoid the rest of the squad, he grabs my hand as I look over at him with a grateful smile. He smiles back at me before we quietly enter the car.

"They're not Lucy," He says as he takes his spot in the driver's seat, reading my mind. "She's with Jenna and she's safe, she's okay and today when we leave work she'll still be safe and we'll get to hold her and put her to sleep and then we'll wake up and do it all over again,"

"I know that," I say softly, "the logical part of my brain knows that, but I just can't shake that feeling, they look so much like her Jay,"

"I know Er, believe me I know, that's the first thing that went through my mind when I saw those photos, but we just have to remember that our daughter is safe."

"Our daughter," I repeat quietly, "you called her our daughter," I know that I love her like she's mine and I figured he did too, but it feels different to hear someone say 'our daughter'. Someone that wasn't a stranger I mean. We've been stopped plenty of times by people telling us how beautiful our little girl was. How her eyes matched mine and she had Jay's smile.

"Well," He says as he looks over at me with a smile, "if she isn't ours, who's is she?"

"Yeah," I say as I pull out, "She's ours, she's definitely ours," Even though she didn't come from us biologically, she was our child. She has my spunk and his charm, being able to talk her way out of nearly anything at just four years old.

We spend the rest of the ride in a comfortable silence, Jay's hand encasing mine. We pull up to the house, a beautiful brick townhouse and we both take a look around after getting out of the car. It's definitely a nice area, nothing less than we expected. We rise up the brick steps at the edge of the house and make our way towards the front stoop.

"You ready?" Jay asks as he takes one last look at me.

"Yep," I say as I knock on the door. They answer quickly, a disheveled couple in their late thirties greets us there.

"Kate and James Lacen?" I ask as the door opens.

"Yeah," Kate says quickly as she nods her head.

"Hi I'm Detective Halstead and this is my partner Detective Lindsay, we've been put on the case to find your girls. Would you mind if we came in? We just have a few questions," Jay asks.

"Yes please come on in," James says as he ushers us in quickly. I nod up at Kate and send her a sympathetic glance as I walk past her. The house is beautifully furnished, you can tell that this is a wealthy family.

"Is there anywhere you'd prefer to do this?" I ask as we stand awkwardly in the foyer.

"We can go into the family room," Kate says quietly as she begins to lead the way. She looks just like an older version of her girls, same red hair, green eyes, and porcelain skin.

She leads us into a cool room, shady grey walls and all white furniture. She gestures us to a couch on one side of a glass coffee table while her and James take their place on an identical couch opposite us.

"Okay so do you just want to walk us through your day yesterday?" Jay asks.

"Uh I woke up around 6:45 like always, James was already gone for work and the girls hadn't gotten up yet. I woke them up around 7, got them ready for school. Sawyer and Zoey had an argument because they didn't want to match but they both wanted to wear purple drove them to Sutton around 8, school started at 8:15 and that's the last time I saw them," She says. I can see her eyes tearing up as those last couple words escape her mouth.

"Hey it's okay, take your time, it's okay," Jay says as he reaches a hand out towards her. I grab a tissue from a container on the side table next to me and offer it to her. She gratefully takes it from me and dabs at her eyes.

"Then we got the call around 2," She continues slowly. "Her teacher Hailey Leighton, she called me. I was at work and I called James before I raced out of there and drove faster than I ever thought I could to the school," She says.

"Why are you even questioning us?" James suddenly erupts. "Why aren't you out there looking for our girls?" He yells back at us. Kate tentatively pats his arm in an attempt to calm him down to no avail.

"Mr Lacen we are just trying to get a setup of their day yesterday, believe me I want to find your girls just as much as you do," Jay responds slowly.

"No you don't!" He yells at us as he's taken aback. "If you did you would be out there searching for our girls!"

"Mr Lacen, in order to find your daughters we need to work smart, that means establishing a series of event prior to their disappearance," Jay says calmly.

"That's crap!" He yells back.

"Detectives," Kate interrupts as she stands up, "May I talk to you in the other room for a second?" We silently comply, not wanting to cause another disruption.

She leads us into another perfectly white and grey room, this time the kitchen and stands with her arms crossed against the island.

"Detectives I'm so sorry about my husband's behavior," She starts. "But you have to understand,"

"Don't worry about it," Jay say genuinely as he looks on.

"Detective Halstead do you have children?" She asks unexpectedly. I look at him, waiting to see what's going to slip out of his mouth.

"Yeah I do," He says and I let out a breathe I didn't know I was holding. "She's four,"

"What would you do if your daughter was taken away from you?" She says and I suddenly understand where she is going with this.

"I would be going insane, you guys are holding it together a lot better than I would be," He says truthfully.

"See?" She says, "His behavior is inexcusable, but you know the circumstances,"

"Mrs Lacen we understand, you don't need to apologize," I say as I lay a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Thank you," she says, "I want to cooperate fully in your investigation, anything to get my girls back, but I don't think this is the best place to do it."

I nod in agreement. "Would you like to come down to the district with us?" I ask.

"Not now," She says with a shake of the head. "I need to calm down James, but later I will be there,"

"Okay," I say as I pull my card from one of my jacket pockets. "Call this number and I'll send a squad car for you." She nods gratefully as Jay and I turn to leave the town home. James shoots us a glare as we pass the opening in the living room and we quickly leave through the front door.

I let the door slam behind us and I turn to look at Jay.

"She's okay right?" I say, referring to our sweet girl.

"Yeah Er, she's okay,"

 **Thank you everyone who reads and reviews! Hope you enjoyed chapter 9! Love to you all, Addie**


	10. Chapter 10

**Jay's POV**

I look over at Erin as we drive back to the district. God how did I get so lucky with her? I may never know.

"Erin you okay?" I say to my partner, knowing how hard this case had been and will continue to be on her.

"I'm trying to be," She says, her eyes trained on the road in front of her, "How can I be a good and fair cop if every time we work a case like this I see Lucy?"

"Erin that's what makes you a good cop," I say as I reach over to grab her hand. "You care and don't ever look at that as a bad thing okay?" She nods back at me, but the sadness still clouds her eyes.

"Thanks Jay," She says as she glance back over at me. "I just can't stop thinking about her, I don't know it might be the hair or maybe it's the eyes, I don't know, but I every time I think about those girls it just terrifies me that something could happen to her,"

"Erin," I say as I squeeze her hand again. "Nothing is going to happen to her," She smiles back at me. My phone dings in my pocket and I pull it out to look at it.

"Who's that?" She says, her eyes not moving from the road ahead.

"Ruzek, they brought in a few of the teachers from Sutton and they want us to come back in to help question them,"

"Okay, tell him we're already headed back and we should be there in a couple minutes,"

"Alright will do," I say as I type up the text. "So," I ask deciding to change the subject in an attempt to take her mind off the case, "how do you want to tell Lucy about us?"

"Well I mean I think we should just keep it low key, it's not a big deal, we shouldn't make it into a big deal," She says.

"Erin, c'mon it is a big deal," I say, "You told our daughter that we weren't dating less than a month ago and now we are, we can't just slip that it," I say.

"Oh so this is my fault," She says, her voice slightly rising.

"No, no, no, no, no that's not what I meant Erin," I say quickly correcting myself.

"Oh okay because that's what you said Jay," She fires back.

"Erin," I say, trying to calm her down, "all I meant was that we cannot brush this off like it is no big deal because she's four and it will be a big deal to her. You didn't do anything wrong Er and I never said that you did,"

"Fine fine I guess you're right." She says annoyed. "And I'm sorry," She says under her breath.

"Oh oh what was that?" I say, trying to get under her skin. "Was that Erin Lindsay apologizing?" I say with a gasp.

"I can admit when I'm wrong Jay," She snaps.

"Well you can, but you won't," I say with a smirk.

"Oh shut up," She says she smacks me on the arm. "And as for telling the kid, maybe just sit her down and straight up tell her,"

"Alright," I agree, "that sounds good, but you know if you aren't ready we don't have to tell her yet,"

"No," She responds, "I want to tell her, it's time that she knows,"

"You know that once we tell Luce the clock is ticking on when we tell Voight," I say.

"What do you mean?" She questions.

"Well she's four, you don't think she'll let it slip the very next time she sees him?" I say.

"Crap," She says as she realizes I'm right. "I didn't think about that,"

"Well you know Lucy, that child will talk your ear off," I say with a chuckle.

"Jay would it be the worst in the world if he found out? I mean we're going to have to tell him at some point."

"I guess you're right," I admit. "We should probably tell him," I say as we pull into the parking lot of the 21st District.

"It'll be okay," She says as she places her hand on my left shoulder.

"If he kills me, I'm blaming you," I say.

"Well I mean you'll be dead, so go ahead," She says with a smirk. She laughs before pulling into our designated parking spot.

"So are we telling him now?" I tease as we get out of the car.

"Hell no!" She exclaims back at me. "I want him to know, but I mean we don't have to ruin things just yet right?"

"Whatever you say," I remark as I pull her into my side and plant a kiss on the top of her head.

"Babe not here!" She exclaims as she scrambles away from me.

"Erin you're being paranoid," I say back, "no one can see us,"

"You don't know that!" She retorts back at me.

"Fine," I say with a smirk as she whacks me again. I laugh at the adorable anger spread across her face which of course just leads to her becoming madder as we make our way to the front entrance. It becomes of a cycle of me laughing and her hitting me that only stops with our entrance into the district.

"We're not done with this," She whispers as we walk up the steps.

"Oh of course not," I say mockingly back to her with a smirk. She glares at me as I push open the front door.

"Batman and Robin let's get a move on, they're waiting for you," Platt yells from behind her desk.

"Always a joy Sergeant," I say sarcastically as we pass her by.

"Yeah I know," She says back. "Now get your assses upstairs," Erin waves her off and we jog up the stairs towards the bullpen.

"Oh you're here finally!" Ruzek says as the bullpen comes into sight.

"You texted us like four minutes ago," Erin responds.

"Whatever," He retorts quickly.

"Okay so who's here?" I ask, not wanting to engage Ruzek right now.

"We've got the twins teacher Hailey Leighton, the other teacher who was on the field trip with them Angela Britton as well as two teaching assistants Lena Kennedy and Olive Marsak and the principal Hollis McAlister is on her way over,"

"Okay great where are they?" Erin asks.

"We put Angela in room one and Hailey in room two and we've got the TAs over there," He says gesturing to two young brunettes in the corner of the bullpen. "We'll have to talk to them afterwards,"

"Okay," I say back to him, "Erin and I will take Hailey and you and Olinsky can talk to Angela. Sounds good?"

"Perfect, let's get started," He says. I nod him off and follow Erin's lead to the interrogation room.

**Erin's POV**

"Hi," I say as we walk into the room, "my name is Detective Lindsay and this is my partner Jay Halstead, we just need to ask you a few questions,"

"Yes of course anything I can do," She responds.

"So," Jay says, "Take me through your day with the twins yesterday Ms Leighton,"

"Call me Hailey please," She says with a grim look of sadness on her face. She's pretty, hair cropped right beneath her chin and blue eyes sparkling yet masked in a layer of sadness.

"Okay," I say with a weak smile, "Hailey take us through your day please," She sighs before giving us a response.

"I saw them for the first time around 8:10, their mom walked them into my class and gave them both a hug and then she turned around and left same as every morning." She says.

"Okay do you remember what the girls were wearing?" Jay interrupts.

"Um Sawyer had on a green dress and Zoey had a pair of jeans and a pink top or it might be swapped I don't remember I'm sorry,"

"That's okay, what did you do next?" I say.

"I took attendance, all of the kids we're here so we separated the kids into their groups and we started heading towards the busses,"

"Whose group were Sawyer and Zoey in?" Jay asks.

"Both of them were in Olive, sorry Miss Marsak's group, she was the one who called me in a panic when she realized they were missing," She says, rendering an image of the two brunettes in the bullpen.

"She's your TA correct?" Jay confirms.

"Yes, she's a student at CCU and she's doing her student teaching with us, she's been here since school started and the twins love her," She says.

"Okay what happened next," I ask as Jay jots down all the information being relayed to us by Hailey.

"We took them to the busses, we got to the museum and the employees went over the rules with the kids and Olive took her group and that's the last time I saw them. She called me five hours later and she was in a complete panic, she said the kids we're missing and I left my kids with one of the employees and ran to her. She was freaking out. I called the Lacens and they told us not to call the police. So we loaded up all the kids and raced back to the school and that's where we met them. I told them what had happened and she told me they would take care of it. It seemed odd to me, but I went along with it. They left the school and I told my kids that Sawyer and Zoey had to leave early and that was it, no one has told me anything since then," She finishes.

"Well the reason the Lacen's told you not to call the police was because they called threatened to hurt the girls if they involved the police or didn't pay a $400,000 ransom within 48 hours," Jay confides.

"Oh my god seriously?" She gasps. I respond with a simple solemn nod. "Then why did they call you guys?" She asks.

"The two of us are part of a unit called Intelligence, we're very good at making people believe that we aren't working on cases, that's why we are here," He responds softly as he reaches across the table to grab her hand as a gesture of comfort. I feel a pang of jealousy, I know that he doesn't mean anything by it, but it still hurts a little bit.

"Did you see anything or anyone unusual while you were at the museum?" I ask, trying to cut their interaction short.

"No, the crowd looked really normal, a lot of moms and nannies with kids, that was about it,"

"Are you sure you didn't see anything?" Jay adds onto my statement.

"No," She says with a shake of her blonde hair, "I'm sorry, everything looked really normal and safe,"

"How about the Lacens?" I ask.

"What about them?" She responds, obviously confused.

"Do you think they would have the money to pay that ransom," I continue.

"Yes definitely," She responds with a nod. "It's a well known fact at Sutton that they have money, a lot of money. The girls came in a year early for kindergarten which made news already with us, but then Kate's very wealthy aunt died and they suddenly became the only thing any of the moms could talk about. So of course that made it back to all the teachers and now pretty much everyone here knows what happened. These Sutton moms gossip like high schoolers, it's kinda ridiculous."

So what you are saying that basically anybody who goes to Sutton or knows someone who goes to Sutton would know that they have money," Jay confirms.

"Yes," She answers. "But I don't know why it would be anyone related to the school, my best bet would be that it was an angry ex con that Mrs. Lacen put away."

"You know about her job?" I ask.

"Again Detective, everyone knows everything about everyone at this school," She responds.

"Okay thank you Hailey," Jay says as he gets up from his seat behind the table, "you're free to go, if you think of anything else please give us a call," He says as he hands her a card.

"I'll walk you out," I say with a small smile. I get up from my chair and she follows suit.

"Hey this is going to sound totally inappropriate, but," She says once we're almost to the end of the bullpen, "is your partner single?" I feel a bit of anger rising in my chest.

"No, no he's not," I say doing my best to appear calm.

"Oh," She says deflated, "that's a shame,"

"Yep," I say writing her off, "but seriously if you can think of anything else call us,"

"Yes of course anything I can do," She says.

"Okay thank you," I say as she walks down the steps. I really hope that we never have to talk to her again.

"Okay so are we talking to Olive Marsak next?" Jay asks as I rejoin him in the room.

"She asked me if you were single," I say with a raised eyebrow.

"Who?" He asks confused.

"Hailey did stupid," I says.

"Oh that's weird, what did you say?" He says now intrigued.

"I just told here that you weren't, no big deal," I say trying to hide my true emotions.

"Were you jealous?" He questions as that dumb smirk he knows I love spreads across his face.

"No," I say, even though I know I'm lying through my teeth and the look on my face definitely giving me away.

"Oh yes you were!" He teases.

"No I wasn't!" I insist.

"Yes, yes you were," He retorts.

"Fine," I concede, "maybe I was a little jealous,"

"Ha I knew it!" He exclaims back at me.

"Okay so I was jealous, she's a hot blonde asking me if my boyfriend was single, why wouldn't I be a little jealous?" I say.

"Erin," He says as he encases my hands in his, "you don't have any reason to be jealous, you are the only person I want to be not single with,"

"Well thanks I guess," I say.

"Alright now we got to go talk to Olive Marsak, you ready?" He says.

"Let's do it,"

 **Just a disclaimer, anything that is procedural like the foster care thing, any kind of police procedure or anything else that comes up in the story is not factual for the most part. I will try to figure out how these things actually work, but I will usually just incorporate them in a way that fits the storyline. If anyone has any questions about the story, feel free to either leave a review about it or PM me. Thank to everyone who continues to read and review as well as everyone who has favorited and followed! Love to you all, Addie.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Sorry for all the confusion about the update last night. I posted it but I quickly decided that I wanted to look it over again and make sure I was happy with it. So if you got the update email and it said the file wasn't available or something like that, that was my fault, not the site glitching. But here is the actual chapter 11 so hope you enjoy! -Addison**

* * *

**Erin POV**

"So you're a teaching assistant, correct?" Jay asks as he sits down across from Olive.

"Yes, I'm in my last year at Chicago Central, I'm getting my degree in education,"

"And you've been at Sutton for the entire year?" I ask.

"Since the year started that's correct," She says again.

"Ms Leighton said that you are particularly close to the Lacen twins," Jay says.

"Yeah, they're sweet sweet little girls, they've been attached to me since the first day, so anything you need, seriously anything just ask,"

"We definitely will," I add softly.

"Okay we've already been through all of these questions with Ms. Leighton, but did you see anyone that looked suspicious at the museum yesterday?" Jay asks.

"I'm sorry no, I was just trying to wrangle my kids, by the time I realized Sawyer and Zoey were gone, I was panicking I wasn't scanning the crowds,"

"Okay," I say.

"Were you aware of the Lacen's financials?" Jay asks.

"Of course," She says, "everyone at Sutton did, I'm sure Hailey told you that," She finishes.

"Had you shared this information with anyone outside the school?" I ask.

"My fiance," She responds.

"What's his name?" I ask as I pull out my memo pad.

"Harrison Adler," She says, "why?"

"Don't worry about it, we just need to follow up on any possible scenarios." I say softly.

"He didn't do anything!" She exclaims defensively.

"And you're probably right," Jay intercepts, "but he might have a connection to someone else who may have had something to do with it, that's all,"

"Oh okay," She responds quietly. "Sorry,"

"Don't worry about it, just focus, all anyone wants to do here is bring back these girls,"

"Okay," She says with a slight nod.

"Have you ever seen anyone lurking around the school, maybe the playground during recess?"

"No, security at Sutton is tight, no one gets in or out without authorization,"

"You're positive about that?" I ask.

"Yes, that's the only thing I'm sure of in this whole thing," She says. I hear a knock on the glass window.

"I'll go," Jay whispers to me. He gets up and walks over to the door before cracking it open and exchanging a few whispers with who I assume is Ruzek.

"Erin we have something," He says to me as he turns back around.

"Okay," I say as I look back at him and nod.

"You can let her go, we'll call her back in if we need here again,"

"Alright, Olive you're free to go, if we need anything we'll call you and if you think of anything that you think could be helpful do not hesitate to call us okay?"

"I will, thank you," She says as she gets up and her chair scrapes the floor. "Find them okay," She says softly as she as walks out.

"We won't stop until we do," I whisper back to her.

"Thank you," She mouths back to me as she surpasses Jay in the open door.

"Alright what do we got?" I ask as I join Ruzek and Jay in the hallway.

"Angela Britton, she's got an ex-husband named Jake Stratton, she left him last year when he arrested for aggravated assault. She said she Lacens had already been enrolled at Sutton for almost a year when she left him and she had told him about them. He got a great lawyer and got off with just a fine and parole, no jail time. But after that he was in financial ruin, spent everything he had getting off those charges, so right now he's our best lead," Adam finishes.

"Okay do we have an LKA on him?" Jay asks.

"His and Angela's old house, 5014 West Ainslie Street, it's in Jefferson Park" Adam recites.

"Did you call Voight?" I ask.

"Yeah he and Antonio are going to meet us there," Ruzek says.

"Okay then let's roll out,"

* * *

Twenty minutes later we've arrived at the Jefferson Park home. It looks like it had been well cared for, but fallen into disrepair over the past year or so, weeds had grown and taken over all other plants and the paint had begun to chip.

Voight's blacked out Escalade was already parked out front, presumably with Antonio and Hank in the front seats. I pushed open the driver's door, my bulletproof vest comfortably snug against my chest.

I watch as Voight and Antonio emerge from the huge car as Al pulls up behind us with Adam in the passenger seat and Kevin in the back.

"Lindsay what do we know about this guy?" Voight asks once he's in a talking distance of me.

"Name's Jake Stratton, we've got him on a charge of domestic violence, ex husband of one of the teachers at Sutton, he knew the Lacens had money,"

"And this is his last known address?" He asks.

"Yes sir," Jay responds from behind me.

"Okay let's go in," The squad, who has been slowly gathering behind us, begins the short walk to the front porch before getting into formation.

So with guns ready behind him, Voight walks up the front door.

"Jake STRATTON! CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT!" He yells as he bangs on the door. "OPEN UP OR WE'RE COMING IN!"

"Knock it down?" Atwater asks after about 10 seconds of nothing.

"Knock it down," Voight confirms. Kevin nods back at him before throwing himself at the door, effectively smashing it down. The team begins to spread out, checking all the rooms in pairs.

"Clear!" I shout as Halstead and I search the living room in the back of the house. My voice is met with a response of mirroring words from the rest of the team.

"Erin, I've got a basement door," Jay says as he kicks open a door.

"Hank we're going down!" I yell towards the front as we approach the door.

"Okay we're going upstairs!" He shouts back. I nod back at Jay as we start to descend down the basement stairs. It's a single open room, no closets or furniture, just a room, with absolutely nothing in it.

I lower my gun and flick on the light switch to my left as Jay does the same and begins to search the room.

"Erin I've got something!" Jay shouts from the opposite side of the room, crouched down looking at the floor.

"What's up?" I ask as I cross to him.

"Look," He says as he nods towards something on the floor. It's a white hair bow.

"You think it's theirs?" I ask.

"Oh I know it is," He says as he points to a wavy red hair trapped between the clips.

"Oh god," I say with a sigh. "He has them, and he's gone,"

"That's what it looks like," He says softly.

"Voight we got something!" I yell up the stairs. My claim is met with the clamoring of boots down the flights of stairs.

"Lindsay what is it?" He says in his signature gruff as Dawson and Voight meet us on the ground floor.

"He has them," I repeat again as they walk over to us. "And he's gone,"

"What makes you say that?" Dawson asks.

"We've got their bow, red hair and all," Jay says.

"And Sawyer was wearing it in the photo we had," I add, remembering that possibly very important piece of information.

"You sure you're right?" Voight asks me.

"No," I answer truthfully, "but I'm pretty frickin' sure,"

"Halstead what do you think?" He asks.

"My gut says she right, he has them Voight," Jay responds.

"Okay then, we're going to sweep the rest of the house. Erin, you and Halstead go back to the district and work with Mouse to find out everything you can about this Jake Stratton guy."

"Got it boss," Jay says. I'm about to object, but Jay places his hand on my wrist and I know it's not the time to argue.

"Okay," I reluctantly agree. I'm silent for the walk out of the house and across the street to the car.

"Why didn't you even argue Voight?" I ask once we're safely in the car.

"Because Erin this isn't the time to argue, it's time to find these girls that's all anyone should be concerned about right now," He responds.

"Fine," I say as I contemplate his thoughts, "I guess you're right,"

"I'm always right," He says with a smirk.

"That's what you think," I say with a scoff.

"Oh really?" He challenges.

"Yep," I respond quickly with a pop on the P. He laughs before we fall into a comfortable silence that lasts us until arriving back at the 21st.

* * *

**Jay POV**

"Alright Mouse we got something for you," I announce as we jog up the steps to the bullpen.

"Hit me," Mouse says as he spins in his chair to face his computer.

"We need everything and anything you can find on a Jake Stratton," Erin finishes for me.

"Okay," He says as he begins to type, "Alright Jake Matthew Stratton, he's got one prior for domestic abuse,"

"Yeah yeah we know that, how about property or family members? Where are we on that?"

"Uh," He says as he scans the screen, "He's only got that one house that you guys already went to, he's pretty strapped for cash,"

"Okay what about siblings, parents, cousins, what's going on on that front?" I demand.

"Geez I'm getting there, slow your roll," Mouse says.

"Get there faster," Erin prods.

"Okay, okay," He says as he continues to scroll, "Bingo! He's got a brother named Max, no priors, but he is loaded. Well not him, his wife rather, a Jamie Stratton."

"Okay does he have any property?" I ask.

"There's a Lincoln Park townhouse but that's under his wife's name," He says as he continues to scan.

"Okay anything else?" Erin asks, I can sense her impatience radiating off her body.

"No," He says looking even harder, "Wait they've got a house in Skokie, it was the family house but when their father died they passed it down to the Max, the family still own it but I don't think anyone's living there." Mouse says.

"Can you double check that?" I ask, not wanting to waste any time.

"Give me a second," He demands as he types rapidly into his computer. "Yes I can confirm, no one has lived there since 2011 but the deed is in Max Stratton's name,"

"What do you think?" I say as I turn to Erin.

"I think it's our only lead right now,"

"Okay, call Voight, tell him that we're headed to Skokie,"

* * *

"They're going to be okay right?" Erin asks as we drive north.

"I don't know Er," I say with a sigh, "I really don't know, but we have to be positive, thinking that there is only one scenario that ends this situation, with us bringing two healthy girls out of that house,"

"But Jay we can't think like that, because that isn't the only scenario," She responds.

"It is as far as I'm concerned," I say a little more sharply than I had intended.

"Yeah," She says wistfully as she stares off into the road. "So," She says as she bites down on her lip preparing to change the subject, "what do you think about moving into my place?"

"Seriously?" I ask in pure shock.

"Yeah," She says casually.

"You know you would usually wait awhile before asking someone to move in right?" I claim.

"Jay we are the farthest thing for normal," She says with a scoff, "we decided to take in a four year old before we were even dating," She says with a laugh.

"Still Er, it's kind of a big step," I say.

"Jay having a kid is a big step and oh look we've already done that! I mean you already basically live at my place anyway, you've been there every night since we got Lucy and this will just keep you from having to grab stuff every week and pay rent on an apartment that you aren't living in, it makes sense."

"Well I mean it is the logical thing to do," I say as I try to rationalize this is my head.

"See it makes sense!" She exclaims back at me.

"Okay I get it, we'll move my stuff in this weekend, I'll call my landlord and end my lease,"

"Alright then," She says as a huge smile spreads across her face. I don't show it, but it makes me so happy that she asked me, in the past it had always been me that had to make the move or encourage her, not that I didn't already know it, but this just confirms it, she's all in and so am I.

* * *

 **Thank you again for everyone who continues to read and review! If you have any suggestions the story or any questions, don't hesitate to either leave it in a review or PM me. -Addison**


	12. Chapter 12

**Thank you again to everyone who has continued to read and review this story and a special thanks to the people that have been reading this since the first day I posted. As always, if anyone has questions for me regarding the story or any suggestions on where you would like the story to go, feel free to PM me or leave it in the reviews and I will try my best to work it into the current storyline. Love to you all, Addie**

**Erin POV**

"Do we wait for Voight?" Jay asks as we pull up in front of the old brick house. It looked cozy, ivy climbing up the sides and a friendly sign hanging on the door, even with all of this, it looked sad too.

"No," I say impulsively, "every minute we wait is another minute those girls could be going through hell,"

"You sure?" He confirms with me.

"I've got back up right?" I say as I stare into his deep blue eyes.

"Always," He says with a quick squeeze of my hand.

"Alright, then let's go," I say as I push open my door and jump onto the awaiting pavement. As my feet pound across the road, I mentally prepare myself for the worst, but I try to over shadow that with the hope that the girls will be fine and they'll go back to their parents and live full incredible lives. That's what little girls are supposed to do.

"Hey it's going to okay," Jay says as he catches on to my nervous energy.

"But what if it's not?" I claim as we approach the curb of the front yard.

"Erin," He responds.

"I know, I know I can't think like that," I cut in. "but I can't help it Jay,"

"You just have to push those thoughts to the back of your head," He responds with a weak smile.

"Okay," I say softly as we walk up the front steps of the porch. I take a deep breath before Jay begins to pound on the front door.

"Max and Jake Stratton! Chicago PD open up!" He yells. "Max and Jake let's go!" He says again as he continues to pound his fists on the door.

` "Take is down," I say as the noise is ignored. He glances at me and turns to the side before slamming his shoulder into the door, knocking the door wide open.

"Zoey, Sawyer!" I yell as we burst into the front hall.

"Help!" I hear from upstairs. I don't even think, my feet are flying up the stairs with Jay hot on my heels.

"Zoey, Sawyer!" Jay calls out again.

"Help!" The voice calls again from the left. I make a sharp turn on the hardwood floors, my boots making a slight squeak.

Jay and I split at the end of the hallways, each heading into one room. The rooms were clean, the hardwood turning into pale yellow paint on the walls and white curtains hanging from all the windows, but empty, all the furniture gone.

"Erin I got her," Jay calls out from the room across the hall. I pivot and dash to his side. But there's only one girl whimpering in the corner, tears streaming down her face. She looks healthy, her long red hair falling down her shoulders and still dressed in a pair of navy jeans and a light pink top, her feet bare.

"Hey sweetie," I say as I run to her, kneeling down by her side. "Are you okay?" I recognize her as Sawyer, a small mole on the side of her nose giving her away.

She gives me a teary nod as her tiny body shakes and she collapses into me.

"Sawyer do you know where your sister is?" I ask her gently.

"She's ac-cross the hall in the closet, he put her in there because she was b-bad," She stammers with tiny fist clutching onto the pocket of my flannel.

"Go," I say quietly as I look up at Jay. He's already gone, pulling open all the doors in the hallway.

"I got her," He calls back to me. He walks back into the empty bedroom, a second red head clutching onto to him, also wearing the same outfit from the day of her abduction.

"Sawyer!" She cries as she catches sight of her sister. She squirms out of Jay's hold and shakily runs over to us. She throws her little arms around Sawyer and I extend mine to reach around her too.

"It's okay, you guys are safe now," I whisper. "Check the house," I mouth to Jay. I stay kneeling in the corner, a twin on each side with on head on each of my shoulders.

"They're gone," He says a few minutes later as he returns to the small bedroom.

"Crap," I say under my breath, "Call Voight and CSU, have them search the house,"

"Voight's already on his way," He responds.

"What?" I ask quietly.

"Erin I texted him on the way, he should be here soon with Antonio," He says.

"Okay," I say with a nod, "Thank you," I turn my attention back to the two girls clinging to me.

"Hey girls, my name is Erin," I say, "and this is my friend Jay," I say pointing to my partner. "We're the police, the good guys,"

"Are we going home?" Zoey whispers.

"Yeah, we're going to bring you girls home," I whisper back.

"I want my mommy," Sawyer cries.

"She'll be waiting for you when we take you back I promise," I tell her.

"Thank you," she says back to me.

"Don't worry about it, it's my job," I say with a smile.

"Erin can we leave now?" Zoey asks softly.

"No sweetie, we can't leave yet. We have to wait for some other police officers to get here and then Jay and I are going to take you home and then we'll go catch the bad men that took you guys away from your parents,"

"And the lady?" Sawyer quivers.

"The lady?" I ask confused. "What lady?"

* * *

**Jay POV**

"Sawyer who are you talking about?" I ask as I kneel down to their height and she separates herself from Erin, "we thought it was two men who took you?"

"No," She responds timidly, "it was Mr. Jake and Miss J,"

"Who's J?" I ask Erin.

"Son of a bitch," She says, her filter going out the window and potty mouth coming back in full force.

"Erin what?" I prod, not realizing where she's going with this.

"He wasn't working with his brother, he was working with Max's wife Jamie, that's J," She says. My mind flashes back to that moment with Max, the photo of the young blonde over the name Jamie Stratton. It didn't make any sense though, Jamie had money, she wouldn't need the ransom money that comes from kidnapping these girls.

"What did she look like?" I ask.

"She looked like Ms Leighton," She whimpers, conjuring an image of the young blonde in my mind.

"Okay," Erin concurs. "Then we'll get her too,"

"You promise?" She asks.

"Pinky swear," Erin responds in that rasp that I love as she stick out her left pinky to interlock with Sawyer's. I turn my head towards the window on the far side of the room as I hear the sirens approaching and see the flashing blue and red pull up.

"He's here," I say with a slight smile.

"Alright you girls ready to go," Erin says she stands up, Zoey still held in her arms. Sawyer gazes up at me and reaches towards me.

"Carry me?" She whispers. I nod down to her and scoop her up the exact same way I've done to Lucy so many times. I follow Erin out of the bedroom, Sawyer clinging to my side as we go through the door and down the old rickety steps. CSU has begun to swarm the house, clad in their well known navy and yellow jackets.

"The brothers are gone right?" Voight asks gruffly and the two of us try to shield the girls from the scene unfolding. He hands us each a CPD jacket to cover the girl's tiny and shaking bodies with.

"It wasn't the brother," Erin tells him, "well it was Angela's ex Jake, but he was working with Max's wife Jamie, not Max,"

"What?" Voight questions.

"The twins, they said they were taken by people who they call Mr. Jake and Ms J, who we know is Jake Stratton and who we believe is his sister-in-law Jamie," I confirm.

"Why would Jamie be working with Jake? She had money," He states, letting me know that Mouse filled him in.

"We don't know," Erin says, "an affair maybe?"

"Maybe," Antonio agrees. "Do we have any leads to where Jake and Jamie are?"

"No, I did a quick search and I didn't see anything but maybe CSU will get something," I say.

"We never went to that townhouse," Erin adds.

"What townhouse?" Voight demands.

"We have an address down for Jamie and Max Stratton, it's a townhouse in Lincoln Park," I answer.

"Antonio get Ruzek and Olinsky down there, have Mouse get them the address,"

"Will do boss," Dawson says as he turns to make the call.

"I got things handled from here, bring the girls home and then go home and see that little girl, you can write your reports later,"

"Thank you," Erin mouths back to Voight.

"Erin you ready?" I ask as I nudge her.

"Yeah," She says softly, "let's go," We silently leave the house, hiding the girl's faces from the commotion and chaos going on in the front lawn.

I look down and realize Sawyer had fallen asleep, her hazel eyes covered with her pale eyelids.

Her light snores fill the silence as we reach the door of the 300. I had moved Lucy's car seat into the trunk while Erin was dropping her off, leaving it empty.

I drop her in the backseat, her head slumping to the left.

"She asleep?" Erin says quietly from her side of the car.

"Yeah," I respond.

"Mine too," She says gesturing to Zoey.

"Let's go," I say as I slam my door. I take my usual spot in the passenger seat of the car and we begin the drive back to the Lacen's townhouse.

"See," I point out, "best case scenario,"

"We don't get very many that turn out like this," She responds.

"Which means that today is a good day," I tell her.

"I know, we got them back and everything is okay but,"

"But what?" I cut in.

"How do people do it?" She asserts.

"Do what?" I ask confused.

"Be parents," She exclaims, "I worry all the time, it's all I think about. Is she okay? Is she hurt? Is she safe? Especially because we're cops, we see the worst crap this city has to offer every day, the worst people who do insane things and now all can think about it someone hurting her or taking her and it is killing me,"

"Erin stop," I say as I grab her hand. "That's called love," I say simply.

"What?" She says as she looks over at me.

"Erin you love her. That's why you worry and that's why you care, you love her and that's okay,"

"Jay I know that, but I cannot keep up this worrying," She pleads.

"Then don't," I respond.

"Jay I can't just turn it off, I would have done that already if I could,"

"Whenever she's not with you, she's either with me or with Jenna at the preschool, she's always in good hands you know that, every time you feel yourself start to panic, just think about that okay?"

"Okay," She says, "I'll try that." We fall into a silence, not comfortable this time. I'm tempted to ask her what's wrong, but I don't. She seems distant and knowing Erin Lindsay, it won't be a good idea to push her into something she doesn't want to discuss.

* * *

**Erin POV**

Jay doesn't understand. I know he wants to, but I don't know how to explain what I'm feeling to him. I know her cares about her I do, he has proved that time and time again and I do trust him with her, I trust him more than anyone, but I don't how to explain the worry and the fear that courses through me every time she leaves my sight.

Her mom was killed by a drug ring and they're behind bars, I know that but I still can't help but think that something is going to happen to her. Her dad was in deep and I just hope that we pulled her far enough away from that hole to keep her out of it forever.

"Erin, Erin," I hear as I feel a tap on my shoulder.

"Sorry sorry," I say as I shake myself out of my haze.

"We're here," He says as he motions towards the townhouse. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," I lie hastily. "Let's get these girls home okay?"

"Okay," He agrees, I can tell he's still questioning me, but he won't say anything. I leave my seat and slam the driver's door behind me before opening the back door.

"Hey Zoey can you wake up for me sweetie?" I say as I gently shake her shoulder.

"Where are we?" She whimpers as she rubs her eyes.

"Zoey sweetie we're home," I say as I scoop her up in my arms.

"Home?" She asks hopefully.

"Yeah," I say as I close the car door behind us. I join Jay on the far side of the car and together the two of us head towards the front door. I take Sawyer's hand in mine and lead her up the stairs while supporting her sister with my other arm.

Jay reaches over and rings the doorbell and I hear the quick shuffling of feet within the doors.

"Hello Detective Halstead," I hear Kate say. The twins are I far enough to the left side of the door that we are out of her line of sight. "I'm sorry I know I told you I would come in, things got crazy around here,"

"Don't worry about," Jay says, "we actually are here with good news?"

"We?" She questions. I urge Sawyer to move into the door frame and I side-step along with her. "Oh my god," She exclaims with relief as Sawyer rushes into her arms with a shriek.

I let Zoey down and in her sleepy haze, she joins her sister in their mother's arms, right where they belong.

"James!" She calls tearfully behind her, "they're home!"

"What?" He says as he staggers into the entryway. I can tell when he catches sight of his girls, the colors drains from his face and barrels towards his wife, his arms wrapping around all three of them.

"Thank you so much," She cries. "I never thought I would get to do this again,"

"It's our pleasure," I say with a smile as I happily watch the reunion unfold.

"We owe you everything," James responds.

"No, we're just doing our jobs," Jay tells him.

"Thank you again," Kate exclaims as she begins to tear up.

"Good luck, if you need anything just call us,"

"Thank you, thank you," James repeats as Jay closes the door on the family of four.

"Best part of the job," He affirms as we make our way back down the steps.

"Always will be," I say with a smile.

"Let's go get out girl," He says as he pulls me into his side again.

"Nothing I'd rather do," I say as I look up at him.

* * *

"How was share day Bean?" I ask as Jay buckles her into her carseat. It had been a long day and all I wanted to do was see my sweet daughter.

"Amazing!" She says with a huge grin and big eyes, "everybody loved my picture and Miss Jenna even hung it up on the wall so everyone could see it!"

"Well I'm sure they loved it, it was a great drawing Luce," Jay agrees.

"Even Lily liked it and Lily doesn't like anything!" She exclaims.

"Sounds like you had a great day Luce," I say with a chuckle.

"How was your day Mama?" She asks.

"I had a pretty good day too Luce," I say as I reflect on what had been a very successful day for the Intelligence unit. "We saved two little girls today, brought them back to their mommy and daddy,"

"You did?" She responds, her eyes wide.

"Yep," Jay says as he settles back in the passenger seat. "They looked a little like you too," he adds.

"Yeah," I agree, "two little redheads,"

"I'm a redhead," She states.

"I know you are baby," I say with a laugh.

"I like being a redhead," She reiterates.

"I know," I say again.

"Uncle Will's hair is a little red, but not like mine, mine is the reddest," She says.

"Good to know Luce," Jay says with a laugh as we pull away from the preschool.

"Where are we going?" She asks.

"Um home?" I say confused. "Bean where else would be go?"

"I don't know," She says, "sometimes we go to the park,"

"Do you want to go to the park?" Jay asks.

"No," She says with that sass hidden in her words. "I wanna go home,"

"Alright then," I say, "let's go home," It's a short drive home, maybe only 5 minutes, all filled with the babble that I've slowly learned to love.

"Hey Luce we have to talk to you about something when we get home okay?" Jay says as we sit at the last stoplight before my, well our now I guess, apartment.

"Am I in trouble?" She asks.

"No why would you be in trouble? I ask.

"Well whenever my mommy said she had to talk to me I was in trouble," She answers.

"You're not in trouble baby, Mama and I just have to talk to you about a couple things," Jay tells her.

"Oh okay," She says as the light turns green. That's the last thing I see before I hear a honk and a crash and everything goes black.


	13. Chapter 13

**Jay POV**

Pain. That's the first thing I feel. A stabbing pain in my head, splitting through it. I'm hazy, I don't really remember what has just happened. Then I hear the sirens. And then it hits me.

"Lucy!" I yell, her name being the first thing I think of. My pain is gone, pushed away by the adrenaline now flooding through my system.

"Daddy!" She cries from the backseat. "Mommy's not awake," I look over at Erin, she's knocked out, her head laying on the steering wheel and blood trickling down her face.I glance around the car, we were struck on her side and the other car is nowhere to be seen. It was a hit and run. I'm still in my seat, the airbag slowly deflating in front of me, but my legs can move. I'm okay.

"Lucy I'm going to come get you just hang tight for a second okay?" I say as I tug at the door handle. Thankfully it opens, my side of the car not affected by the crash. I move quickly, my main goal to get Lucy out of the semi mangled 300 as fast as possible and then get help for Erin. That's what Erin would want, she would want me to get Lucy out first.

I pull open Lucy's car seat with all the strength I have and rush to undo the buckles on her car seat.

"Daddy," She cries as she throws herself into my arms.

"Lucy are you okay?" I ask frantically as look over her tiny body for any injuries. "Does anything hurt?" A crowd has gathered around the sight of the crash, I mean it did stop intersection traffic after all.

"I-I think I'm o-okay," She stutters as shakes is my arms. "Is Mama okay?"

"I don't know Luce," I answer truthfully. "But we going to hope so okay?"

"Okay Daddy," She says tearfully as she buries her head in my shoulder. I hear the ambulance squealing as it pulls up in front of us.

"What happened?" A young paramedic yells as she runs from the rig towards us.

"It was a hit and run," I say breathlessly.

"Is anyone else in the car?" She demands as she looks over me and Lucy.

"Erin Lindsay, she's in the driver's seat, unconscious,"

"Okay, we'll get her," She says with a weak smile. "Are you two okay?" She say motioning to me and Luce.

"I think so, just take care of Erin, we can wait," I plead.

"Okay, just hang tight, we'll get her out of there and then we'll you to taken care of,"

"Um which hospital are we going to?" I ask.

"Mount Sinai why?" She asks curiously.

"I'm sorry but that won't work, take us to Med," I say.

"Excuse me?" She says with a raised eyebrow.

"We are going to Med," I say again, more firmly this time, "that's who I trust and that's the only team I want working on her,"

"Okay," She concedes, "I'll make the call enroute,"

"Thank you," I say, "now please save her," I watch as the woman is joined by a man with a stretcher. They pry open the smashed door of the Chrysler and strap a brace around Erin's neck.

I hoist Lucy up onto my hip and hide her face the crook of my neck, she doesn't need to Erin be loaded onto a stretcher. I can hear her sobs and feel the cool salty tears slide off her cheeks and land on my chest..

One of the paramedics gives me a nod once they've loaded Erin onto the ambulance and I rush to join them in the back of the bus. She seems stable. The monitors hooked up to her aren't erratic and the medics seem calm. That has to be a good sign. Even if it isn't, I'm going to keep telling myself that it is.

The sirens wail as we speed towards Chicago Med, my eyes not leaving her still face.

"We're here," The paramedic says to me as the ambulance slows to a stop. The double doors fly open and the two of them rush together to get her inside the ED.

"Erin Lindsay, we pulled her out a car after a hit and run, vitals holding steady, but it seems like she might have some free fluid in the belly and in the chest," The male paramedic shouts as we cross through the sliding doors. Lucy hasn't talked this entire time, a mixture of shock and her words being replaced by tears.

"Thank we'll take it from here," A nurse says as she takes the stretcher. I recognize her as Maggie, I've seen her a few times when we've been here with victims, but I mainly know her from Will's stories. Dr. Choi joins her quickly and helps to rush Erin into a trauma bay and I stop defeated, knowing I won't be able to be by her side anymore.

"Jay!?" I hear from the other side of the department. I look up, it's my brother. "What the hell happened?" He shouts as he runs over to us.

"Hit and run," I say exasperated, "Erin took the brunt of it, car crashed into the driver's side,"

"Oh my god are you okay?" He asks as he reaches us and starts looking us over.

"I think I'm okay," I say.

"That doesn't look okay," He says, pointing to the cut on my cheek.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me, just help Erin and get Lucy checked out okay? She says she okay, but I want to make sure. We can worry about me later," I say. He's one of the only people who knows about Erin and I's situation and I know he won't argue with me right now.

"Okay," He agrees reluctantly, "April page Natalie, please, tell her it's an emergency okay?" He says.

"Got it," She says as she picks up a phone.

"C'mon," Will says as he ushers us into an exam bay and pulls the curtain closed.

"Dr. Choi," I start.

"What about him?" Will responds.

"He's good right?" I ask.

"Yes he's good Jay, only the best for Erin you know that," He says.

"She's going to be okay right?" I ask in fear.

"I don't know Jay, she got hit pretty hard, but we're going to do everything we can and all you can do it be there for Lucy and hope,"

"Okay," I answer quietly.

"Okay," He confirms, "I'm going to go get a status update on Erin, Nat should be in here soon, sit tight,"

How can I sit tight? Erin is lying there hurt, injured, and alone. I would do anything to holding her hand right now, to be telling her that everything is going to be okay. Hell I need her to tell me everything is going to be okay.

"Daddy," Lucy says, surprising me with her first words in the midst of the chaos.

"What is it baby?" I ask as she looks up at me.

"Is Mama going to be okay?" She asks. Her pleading eyes pull at my heartstrings. And what kills me is that I can't tell her that she's going to okay, no one can.

"I don't know Luce," I say honestly, "but you heard what Uncle Will said, we just have to hope that she's going to be okay, alright?"

"Okay," She says as another tear runs down her face. "I love you Daddy," I'm shocked by her statement, but I don't think twice before responding.

"I love you too Luce,"

* * *

"So you got into an accident I see?" Natalie says as she examines Lucy.

"A bad guy crashed his car into ours," She responds slowly.

"I heard, do this hurt?" She says as she presses down on Lucy's stomach.

"No," She says simply. "I'm okay my seat held me in, can you fix my dad's cut now?" She says softly as the points at the cut running straight across my left cheek.

"Like father, like daughter," She says with a laugh as she strips off her gloves.

"I'm fine," I argue.

"No you're not," She responds, "I'll send someone in to stitch that up for you okay?"

"Thanks," I say as she turns towards the exit, "Hey Nat," I say as she turns back towards me.

"Yeah?" She responds.

"Have you heard anything about Erin?" I say quietly, careful for Lucy not to hear.

"Sorry Jay, I haven't heard anything," She says regretfully.

"It's okay, it's just Will said he would be back in here with an update a while ago,"

"Will probably just got pulled into a case, I can go check for you if you want," She offers, "The nurses love me, they'll let me in on what's happening,"

"Thank you," I say gratefully.

"Don't worry about it," She says as she exits the bay.

"You okay Daddy?" Lucy asks as she runs her little finger alongside the cut on my face. I wince slightly as a sharp pain follows her touch.

"Sorry," She says tentatively as she retracts her hand quickly.

"It's okay Luce," I say as I smile back at her. Even with the pain coursing through me, all I can think about it Erin. Even as I try to push it to the back of my mind and focus on Lucy, I can't, she's the only thing.

"Hello Mr. Halstead, I'm Dr. Everett and I'll be fixing up that cut you've got," She says with a smile. She's young, probably brand new too because I've never seen her around and Will's never mentioned her as far as I know. She rolls in a tray of instruments with him, it making a clanging noise as it moves.

"Thanks," I mutter. But still I don't care I just need to know that Erin is going to be okay.

"So to start I'm just going to inject a little bit of lidocaine into the skin around the wound so you won't feel anything," She says with a smile. I don't respond, just giving her a small nod as that needle comes alarmingly close to my eye. I wince at the small pinch caused by the numbing agent.

"Okay so that should start to work in a second and then we'll get started," I give her another somber nod.

She waits another couple minutes before beginning the process of actually stitching me up. It don't feel any pain, not physically anyway.

She finishing up as Will reappears in the bay.

"Will have you heard anything?" I say as I sit up abruptly.

"Yeah," He says, his face still straight as my heartbeat rises.

"And?" I demand impatiently.

"Good news is she's going to be okay," He says. My system floods with relief as I hug Lucy just a little bit tighter.

"Thank god," I say in relief.

"But the bad news is she's going to need surgery," He says as my demeanor plunges down. "She's got a pretty bad splenic bleed that isn't going to resolve itself and she's got something called a pneumothorax, which means that her lung has collapsed as well as a few broken ribs,"

"But you can fix it right?" I ask hopefully,

"Yes, we can but it's going to be a hard recovery, it's major abdominal surgery she'll be out for at least two weeks, maybe more,"

"But you're saying that you can fix it?"

"Yes, we definitely can," He tells me.

"Okay do it, do whatever you need to do," I say determined.

"Alright I'll let them know to go ahead," He says as he turns to leave.

"Uncle Will," Lucy says unexpectedly, "Can Daddy and I go see Mommy?" Will looks over at me with a confused look in his eyes, her new change of my title surprising him. I'm not sure why it's so shocking to him though, he introduced himself as Uncle Will the very first time that he met her. Then again, I was shell shocked the first time she said it to me.

"Not right now Luce, your mama is headed into surgery right now, but as soon as she gets out I'll make sure you are the very first one to see her,"

"Pinky swear?" She asks as she holds out her tiny finger.

"Pinky swear," He repeats as he moves over and interlocks his finger with hers. He smiles down at her before turning again to leave the room.

"Jay?" He says at the last minute before leaving.

"Yeah?" I respond.

"Have you called Voight?" He questions. Crap. Voight, a call to him should have been made long ago. Obviously my logic was greatly overshadowed by the pure and utter panic that was consuming me. Will letting me know that she was going to be okay lessened my panic slightly, not by much. I am still very much freaking out.

"No, thank you for reminding me I need to do that," I say as I pull my phone out of my back pocket.

"No problem bro," He says as he pulls the curtain closed behind him. I leave my left arm looped tightly around Lucy's shoulder as I hit the the third number on my speed dial, after my girlfriend and my brother. He picks up on the first ring.

"Voight," He answers in that always identifiable gruff.

"It's Halstead," I respond, my voice solemn.

"What's happened?" He says, his voice rising in response to my tone.

"It's Erin, you need to get to Chicago Med now,"

* * *

"Halstead what the hell happened?" Voight yells as he storms into the surgical waiting room. In the past twenty minutes or so, we had been released from the ED and ushered up to the surgical floor by a nurse I hadn't learned the name of. Lucy had gone quiet again, images of the accident still firmly cemented in her little mind.

"It was a car accident, some maniac rammed into her side of the car and then floored it away from the crash," I tell him.

"Are you serious?" He shouts, rage filling his eyes. "I'm going to kill that son of a bit-"

"Voight stop," I say cutting him off as I gesture to Lucy curled up in her seat in the corner of the large room. "She's going to be okay, that's the important part,"

"She's going to be okay?" He says, his voice softening.

"That's what Will told me," I respond.

"You could have started with that Halstead!" He exclaims back at me.

"Sorry," I mutter like a child who just got caught. "She's in surgery now, but Will said that things were looking good,"

"Do you know when she'll be out?" He asks

"Not for a while, they just took her up like fifteen minutes ago," I tell him.

"So we just sit here and wait?" He says with frustration bubbling in his voice.

"Yeah," I respond reluctantly, not wanting to do it anymore than he did. He slumps down in defeat into one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs. I make my way to the a seat a couple down from him and I plop down in the same matter, disappointed by the fact that we weren't able to see Erin.

It's almost as if Lucy can sense my disappointment, as she crosses over from her spot in the corner and curls up in my lap.

"How are you Luce?" I say as I plant a firm kiss to the top of her hair.

"I'm okay Daddy," She says as she looks back up at me. Crap. Voight doesn't know yet. He's never even heard her call Erin mommy, let alone me. I know what he's going to assume, not that he's wrong but this is definitely not the way that either of us wanted him to find out. I look over at him nervously, his eyes are blazing and there might have been steam flying out of his nose.

"What did she just call you?!"


	14. Chapter 14

**Jay POV**

" _What did she just call you!?"_

Crap. I'm about to get it. The one thing that he told me was that Erin off limits and that happens to be the one rule I couldn't help but break.

"Daddy," She answers oblivious to the fact that anything at all is wrong. "That's who he is duh,"

"Halstead, hallway now," He demands, fury filling his eyes. He storms out the room, probably preparing to murder me.

"Hey baby I need you to sit here for a little while okay? I have to go talk to Sergeant Voight and then I'll be right back okay?" I whisper in her ear.

"Okay," She responds softly. I pick her up off my lap and put her back in her seat before giving her a light kiss on the forehead.

I prepare myself, not sure what Voight is going to scream at me. I'm readying for the worst. I'm sure he'll try to get me to break up with Erin. Little does he know, there's no way in hell that's happening. My nerves are getting the best of me, but I won't back down from this. I'm not giving up Erin no matter what he says.

"Halstead what the hell was that?" He shouts, his already normally stoic eyes looking more pissed off than I've ever seen them.

"That would be my daughter," I respond. I hold my breath, almost waiting for his fist to connect with my face. But nothing comes.

"Your what?" He's still loud, but he seems less angry and more confused. I know Erin has kept him in the dark after she talked to him on that first day. I take a deep breath.

"My daughter," I repeat.

"Isn't Erin supposed to be fostering her?" He asks, his volume not decreasing and left eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, she still is," I respond.

"Then where the hell do you come in?" He demands.

"I've been staying at Erin ever since she got Lucy, helping her with Lucy and she latched onto me," I say slowly, waiting for the backlash.

"And then you and Erin happened?" He bellows.

"Yes, pretty soon after that," I say carefully.

"You have got to be kidding me," He says angrily as I peek past him to drop a quick glance at Lucy.

"No," I say, "I'm dead serious,"

"Halstead I gave you one rule. One rule. Erin was off limits. That was my one rule, and you just broke it," He states angrily as he fills in the blanks and all the pieces begin to slide into place.

"I know," I say slowly.

"I don't have any tolerance for in house relationships," He roars.

"I know, believe me I know," I voice, "but I'm not giving up on this,"

"Oh you aren't now are you?" He retorts.

"No, I'm not," I respond, my confidence slowly returning. "I will not give up on her or us or our daughter no matter what you say, because I love them, I love her," My own words shock me, I didn't think that word would come out of my mouth this soon, but I don't regret it. Not for a second.

"You do?" He questions, his eyes starting to ever so slightly soften.

"Yes sir," I say carefully.

"Is she is happy?"

"I can't speak for her, but she seems happy,"

"Halstead I'm not happy about this," He says.

"I'm aware of that," I say.

"But I'm going to allow it," He says, sending shock waves through me.

"Y-you are?" I stutter in surprise.

"She's happy and she's loved, I'm not thrilled that it's with one of the guys in my unit, but it's okay,"

"Thank you," I say as I look up at him. This wasn't necessarily an approval and he wasn't super on board with the idea of her dating me, but this was as close to an approval as the insanely protective Hank Voight would ever give in any scenario pertaining to the closest thing he had to a daughter, Erin Lindsay.

"Don't screw this up Halstead," He retorts.

"I won't," I say with conviction.

"I'll you if you do," He threatens.

"I know you will, but I'm not screwing this up," I assure him. I can tell that that still means nothing to him. Actions will always speak louder than words, a statement truer than true when it comes to Voight. He'll be skeptical until I prove that I'm worthy of Erin. Which I won't, no one is worthy of her. We both know that. But I will try damn hard to get as close as I possibly can.

* * *

"Have you heard anything?" He asks as he walks briskly back into the waiting room, a cup of coffee held in each hand.

"Nope," I say as I gratefully take the cup offered to me. "I don't know if it's a good thing because it's going fine and there's nothing to update on or something went wrong and they're working so fast there's no time to update us," We'd been sitting here for running on five hours, the time now approaching 10 PM. Lucy fell asleep on me about an hour ago and we moved her to the couch on the opposite side of the waiting room after Natalie had swung by with a blanket and pillow. I knew that she was fighting sleep, she didn't want to fall asleep without knowing that Erin was okay. But eventually sleep won out and she drifted off. We decided not to call the rest of the unit, not yet at least.

"We just have to hope for the second option Halstead, that's all we can do," He says.

"I know, it's just hard," I tell him.

"I know it is, but you have to power through, hopefully someone will be out soon,"

"Yeah," I agree as I take a sip of the coffee, trying to load my system with caffeine as I know I won't be sleeping tonight. Things were still quite awkward between me and Voight, but we had been civil, communicating honestly and respectfully for Erin's sake.

We sit there in silence, drinking coffee and waiting. Just waiting. The minutes feel like hours as they tick by.

Voight and I both rush to our feet as we see Dr. Choi approaching from down the hallway. My nerves are flying wild, every fiber of my being just hoping that she is okay. I know that Will said she would be okay, but I need to hear it from them that she is okay.

"Family for Erin Lindsay I assume," Dr. Choi asks as they walk up to us.

"You assume right," Voight responds, "what's going on?"

"We repaired the pneumothorax and the removed the spleen without any issues," Dr. Choi says.

"Thank god," I say without realizing it.

"But," He continues. My heart drops, but is never a good thing. "We did find something else, a bleed near her liver,"

"Did you fix it?" Voight interrupts.

"We did," He answers, "however Erin did lose a lot of blood while we were operating on her, but she should be okay,"

"Should be?" I question, my voice rising a little bit.

"Will be,'" He corrects himself, "she will be okay,"

"Can we see her?" I ask impatiently.

"She'll still be asleep and she will be for a couple hours as she comes out of the anesthesia, but yes I can take you guys to see her,"

"Thank you," I say. I look back at Lucy, deciding to try and transport her without waking her. "Give me a second, I just have to grab my daughter,"

"Don't worry take your time," He says as I turn and cross the length of the room. Her sweet face looks so peaceful, so angelic, like she doesn't have a care in the world. I smile down at her before scooping her up in my arms, leaving the blanket wrapped around her but abandoning the pillow on the couch.

I feel her stirring against my shoulder, starting to wake.

"Daddy where are we going," She says hazily as her eyelids flutter.

"Don't worry about it baby, go back to sleep okay?" I whisper in her ear.

"Okay Daddy," She says as her eyes close once again.

"You ready?" Voight says softly from across the room.

"Yeah let's go,"I say quietly, not wanting to wake Lucy again.

Dr. Choi nods at me and motions for us to follow him. The of us follow him down the winding hallways of Chicago Med, trying my best to not shake Lucy around too much, even though all I want to do is break out in a sprint and run to Erin as fast as I can. But I hold back, walking slowly behind Dr. Choi, letting him take the lead.

After what seems like forever, we enter the Intensive Care Unit, all the rooms blocked off by sliding panels of frosted glass, the unwelcome scent of antiseptic filling my nose. The unit feels so sterile, which I guess is good, but it's giving me the best feeling.

"She's right over here," He says as he gestures to one of the doors on the left. He guides us over to the entrance on the room and slowly slides the door open.

Erin lies there, hurt, but also peaceful. A cut runs down the side of her forehead with an oxygen tube just entering her nose and that's just what I can see now, who knows what's going on under that hospital gown.

"I'll leave you to it," He says quietly as he walks away from Voight and I.

"Thank you," Voight says. He nods back at us. I lay Lucy back down on a couch luckily placed in the room before moving myself to a chair by her bedside. I grab her hand, they're cold.

"Now we wait," Voight says as he takes a seat on the other side of the bed.

"No," I respond, "I'll wait, you should go home and get ready for tomorrow,"

"I'm not leaving," He says, "and besides, what's tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow is the day you are going to catch the son of a bitch who did this to her," I tell him.

"Halstead I can do both, but I'm going to be here now," He says to me, his voice angry but still quiet.

"No you can't," I say forcefully.

"Excuse me?" He says, his voice rising slightly.

"You can't do it all and it isn't going to doing Erin any good if you are sitting here worried all night and then you are off your game tomorrow," I say with conviction.

"Halstead I'm not leaving her," He tells me.

"You aren't leaving her though, I'll be here and she'll be fine, I won't leave her bedside I promise," I assure him.

"You swear?" He asks, letting me know that I'll slowly swaying him.

"I don't break promises," I assert.

"Okay," He says as he gets up out of his chair. "But if anything happens you call me okay?"

"I wouldn't think of doing anything else," I swear.

"I'm calling in the team early tomorrow to figure this out, we're going to catch this guy," He guarantees me.

"Call me with updates, I want to know everything you found out," I say.

"Of course," He says as he turns to leave. "And Halstead?"

"Yeah?" I respond as I look up at him.

"Take care of her okay?"

"Yes sir,"

* * *

It's been another five hours, the time ticking past 3 am. Erin still wasn't awake. She should be. I'm tired, I've been running on straight caffeine in the form of coffee brought to me every half hour by my brother or a nurse probably sent by my brother. Luckily Lucy hasn't woken up either, she's still happily sleeping on the couch in the corner of the room. My back is stiff as a result of sitting in the same chair for so long, but I don't care. All I want is for those beautiful hazel eyes to open.

Dr. Choi had stopped by a couple hours ago. He hadn't had a reason for why she wasn't awake yet, everything had gone well in the surgery. So once again I'm flying blind, just waiting for those eyes to open up. I've heard horror stories about people not waking up, no reason behind it, they just don't. That can't happen to her. To us.

Her left hand is encased in mine, just as it has been for the past five hours, my eyes almost always focused on her still face while occasionally taking a glance away to take a peek at our daughter.

"C'mon Erin you have to wake up," I plead, not knowing if she can even hear me, "Lucy can't lose another mom, I can't lose you, I love you,"

"She's not going to," She says weakly with her eyes still closed. My heart soars, she's awake, she's okay.

"Oh my god," I say hysterically as I press a kiss to her forehead, "you scared the crap out of me Erin Lindsay,"

"Is she okay?" She asks gently as her eyes open slowly.

"What?" I ask, still in shock from her awakening.

"Lucy, is she okay?" She asks.

"Yeah," I say as small tears form in the creases of my eyes, "She's okay, we're all okay,"

"What happened?" She asks.

"It was a hit and run, they rammed into your side of the car and you got knocked out, they rushed us all to Med and they sent you straight into surgery,"

"How long have I been out?" She questions, her usual rasp even more accentuated.

"You were in surgery for around five and you've been asleep for another five hours," I answer.

"Oh god I'm sorry," She responds.

"You didn't do anything wrong babe," I tell her.

"No but I'm sorry, I know you and Luce were probably scared to death,"

"We were," I answer honestly, "but it wasn't your fault Er and you're okay now, that's all that matters,"

"Okay," She says softly, "Did you call Voight?"

"Yeah he was here the entire time that you were in surgery, I sent him home so he could go catch the guy who did this tomorrow, he put up a fight though,"

"I'm sure he did," She says with a weak laugh.

"Hey why don't you just sleep, you look tired,"

"I am," She says with another weak laugh, "which is bizarre because I've been asleep for the last 10 hours,"

"Don't worry about it, just go to sleep, I'll be here when you wake up," I tell her.

"Okay," She says, "and Jay?"

"Yeah?" I respond.

"I love you too,"


	15. Chapter 15

**Erin POV**

My eyes flutter open to the still dark, but slowly lightening surroundings of the Chicago Med ICU. I look to my left and see Jay asleep in a chair and Lucy curled up on the couch in the corner. The events of the past day are still a little foggy to me, but slowly they begin to come back to me.

The case, the twins, the crash, the surgery, Jay telling me he loves me, me saying the same. It's been a day.

"Welcome back," A nurse says with a smile as she checks my vitals, pulling me out of my haze. I read her name as Marie on her name tag.

"What time is it?" I say groggily as I move to rub my eyes. I wince as I feel a sharp pain in both the left side of my chest and in my stomach. Great, they had to cut into me in more than one place.

"It's about 6:30 in the morning," She says, her overly perky voice filling the emptiness of the room, the background of Jay and Lucy's quiet snores filling in the blanks. Her looks fit her voice, a very curled brunette ponytail sits very high on her head and her teeth are almost too white.

"Is Dr. Halstead on call by any chance?" I say weakly, my throat feeling drier than sandpaper.

"I'm not sure, I can check," She says, her brow furrowing in confusion, "he's not your doctor though, do you mean Dr. Choi?"

"I know," I say, "but I would like to see him please, if he's not here could you get Dr. Manning please?"

"I can try," She says softly as she picks up the phone across the room from me. She punches in a few numbers and listens to a message before speaking.

"Is Dr. Halstead available?" She says into the receiver. She's silent for a couple seconds before responding.

"Could you ask him to come up to the ICU?" She pauses again, I assume while whoever's on the other end asks why. "Erin Lindsay is awake and she's asking for him," She continues. "Okay thank you," She says as she hangs up.

"He'll be right up," She says softly.

"Thank you," I say with a smile.

"What kind of pull do you have around here? As soon as I said your name they said he would be right up," She says confused. I give her a small laugh, which hurts a hell of a lot but mostly confuses her.

"I'm CPD which definitely helps, but I'm dating his brother which is probably the actual reason," I say as I use my head to gesture towards a sleeping Jay. I want to giggle, but I don't, remembering the pain it caused me just a second ago.

"I need to date a doctor's brother," She jokes, "maybe then I'll get the doctors to run when I call them," I struggle to stifle another laugh.

"I have to go check on another patient, but if you need me just press the call button okay?"

'Alright, thank you Marie," I say weakly as she leaves the room. Her absence leaves another thick blanket of silence over the room as I scan it for details. Nothing sticks out, everything is fairly bland. But this is the way my brain has been programmed and I continue to do it until I see Will walk through the sliding doors.

"Hey how are you feeling?" He says softly.

"Not so great," I say honestly.

"Well you did just come out of a major surgery so I wouldn't expect anything else but your vitals all look good,"

"Good," I say weakly, "that's good,"

"Yeah it is," He says quietly.

"What happened?" I question, not wanting to make Jay relive the events when he wakes up.

"What do you remember?" He questions.

"I was driving home from Lucy's preschool, Jay was in the passenger seat and Lucy was in the back and we crashed and then I woke up and I talked to Jay but I'm missing like ten hours in between, he told me that it was a hit and run as we were rushed here but that's all I know," I respond. He takes a deep breath before answering me.

"So yeah they rushed all of you here and we examined you, you had a splenic bleed so we had to end up taking out your spleen as well as repairing your collapsed lung and we patched a bleed near your liver," He says, explaining the soreness in my chest and stomach.

"How long am I going to be out for?" I ask, cutting to the chase.

"We're going to keep you here for at least a few days and then a mandatory medical leave of at least three weeks," He says.

"Are you kidding me?" I ask as I shoot forward. Well attempt. My hand shoots to my lower abdomen as I feel a stabbing pain curve through my torso as a result of the apparently too quick movement.

"Nope," He responds, "you just had major abdominal surgery, before we let back out onto our streets, you need to heal okay?"

"Will, I can't take three weeks off," I plead.

"Erin I don't care, you need to take the time off if you don't want re-injure yourself and end up right back here okay?"

"Fine," I grumble, "two and a half weeks?" I ask.

"Erin," He says with an eyebrow raised.

"Fine, fine, fine I'll take the time off," I reluctantly agree.

"You swear?" He says, still unsure.

"I swear," I say with a roll of my eyes.

"I'm going to make Jay keep an eye on you," He says.

"I'm sure you will," I say, slightly annoyed.

"And while you are off, you can spend more time with Lucy right?" He adds, trying to find a silver lining in this situation for me.

"That's true," I say with a slight smile. "They're actually okay right?' I ask .

"What?" Will asks,confused by my very out of the blue question.

"Jay and Lucy, I mean he told me that they were fine but I think he was kinda in shock that I had woken up and you know Jay, he never wants to admit that he's hurt,"

"Well he came in with a cut across his forehead, but that was an easy fix and Lucy was fine. I had Natalie take a look at her, no cuts, no bruises, she was just in shock but she's four so that's going to be normal,"

"Good, that's good," I say once again. "Will can I tell you something?" I say, still unsure of myself.

"Anything, what's up?" He says. I look over to make sure that Jay is definitely asleep.

"I think I want to move forward in the adoption process with Lucy," I confide in him.

"Wow," He responds, "that's big,"

"I know," I say with a deep breath.

"Have you talked to Jay yet?" He asks.

"No," I answer, "I just decided,"

"Oh okay," He says confused, "any reason why?"

"People get hit by cars," I say honestly, "I was lucky and I ended up being okay, but I could have died today. I don't want to have any regrets anymore,"

"That makes sense," He replies.

"It does?" I confirm as I bit down on the right side of my bottom lip.

"Yeah it does," He responds, "it makes a lot of sense," A yawn escape my throat as the words escape his. "Alright now go to sleep, you can talk to Jay when you wake up, I'll take Lucy on a tour of something so it'll just be the two of you,"

"Okay," I agree without argument. "What do you think he'll say about the adoption?"

"I don't know," He says, "but I do know that he loves you and that little girl like I've never seen him love before,"

"Thank you Will," I say with a smile.

"Okay now get some rest," He says as he turns to leave the room.

"You don't have to ask me twice," I say as my eyes slide closed.

xxx

"When is Mommy going to wake up?" I hear, my eyes still closed.

"I don't know Luce, she's napping right now, so we have to let her rest," Jay tells her.

"Why?" She whines, dragging the short word into two syllables, unsatisfied with his response.

"Mommy needs to rest, she got hurt last night and she has to get better okay?" He tries to explain.

"But I wanna see her now!" She shouts as Jay tries to quiet her.

"Shh, shh," He pleads, "there are a lot of sick people here, you have to be quiet Bean," I open my eyes and continue to watch and listen to their playful banter, waiting for one of them to realize I'm awake.

"Mama!" She squeals as she finally looks over at me.

"Hey baby," I say weakly, my throat still incredibly dry.

"I missed you," She says as she reaches over to hug me.

"Luce be careful," Jay stops, "Mama just had surgery,"

"I'm okay," I rasp, "and you'll be careful right Bean?"

"Uh huh!" She enthusiastically agrees.

"Okay come here," I say as I wrap my arms around her teeny body. I wince slightly, feeling the pressure on one of my incisions and I know that Jay sees it. But it's worth it. This is all I want, a hug from my little girl.

"Mama I missed you so much," She repeats into my ear.

"I missed you too Bean," I whisper back as I slowly run my fingers through her soft waves and breathe in her familiar scent.

"I was so scared," She says.

"I know baby I'm sorry, but I'm okay now, everyone is okay," I tell her as she gets into her favorite position, curled into my side. I know Jay's eyes are trained on me, making sure I'm okay. But I ignore him, relishing in the company of our sweet girl.

"Why do you have to be in the hospital then? Uncle Will says they fix sick people here, are you sick Mama?" She asks, her eyes full with concern and wonder.

"No I'm not sick Luce," I respond, "I just got a little hurt so I have to stay here for a little while so I can get better alright?" I say as I continue to run my hands through her hair.

"When can we go home?" She asks.

"A couple days," I answer slowly.

"And then we can leave?"

"Of course," I say as I squeeze her tighter. I look over and I can tell that Jay is worried about me. I think he always is, I know I'll always worry about him, but there is a slight start of a smile creeping onto his face as he watches the two of us.

I hear a knock on the door and see Will waiting at the glass. Jay motions for him to come in and he joins us.

"Hello again," Will says with a smile as he greets us.

"Again?" Jay asked, confused.

"I woke up really early this morning and I had a nurse page Will for me," I explain.

"Why didn't you wake me?" He asks, his brow furrowing in frustration and anger.

"Jay it was 6 am, you'd been awake forever you needed to sleep," I reply.

"No I'm awake when you need me," He argues back.

"Jay it's okay, calm down," Will reasons. "She was fine, she just wanted to know what had happened and she didn't want to wake you,"

"Okay" He says reluctantly, "you swear you will wake me if anything happens?"

"Nothing is going to happen," I attempt to convince him.

"Yeah Daddy, Mama's fine," Lucy agrees.

"See?" I say as I point at her. "Don't worry about me,"

"Erin I'm always going to worry about you," He says as he presses a kiss to my forehead.

"I knew it!" Lucy shrieks as I realize what Jay's just done. Well I guess we have to tell her now. "I was right," She says, only slightly quieter this time.

"Yeah you're right," I say with a little smile.

"Why didn't you tell me in the park?" She asks.

"Well baby, that day in the park, Jay wasn't my boyfriend yet, so I told you the truth, we just decided not to tell you until we we're sure, does that make sense?" I say, referencing the first day we spent together.

"Yeah I guess so," She says as she looks up at Jay with a smile. "So are you going to marry Mama now?"

"Woah," Jay says, "slow your roll little miss,"

"I love your daddy," I cut in, "but I'm not ready to marry him. Not yet anyway okay?"

"Someday?" She asks hopefully.

"Maybe someday," Jay says wistfully as his gaze shifts to my eyes.

"Okay," Will interrupts, dragging out the word, "now seems like a good time to cut in," Jay looks over at him, once again confused as he was not a part of our earlier conversation. "Luce do you want to come see the babies with me?"

"Yes!" She squeals as she launches herself out of the bed.

"What the hell was that?" Jay asks as soon as she's out of earshot.

"I need to talk to you about something and I didn't want her in the room for this," I say, trying to slow down my heartbeat.

"What's wrong?" He asks, assuming the worst.

"Nothing's wrong," I say as I place my hand over his. "Just a question first, did they get them?"

"What?"

"Jake and Jamie Stratton," I continue, "the twins kidnappers, did they get them?

"Yeah, Antonio and Ruzek picked them up a while ago, they're sitting in holding as we speak,"

"That's good," I say softly.

"Okay now what do you really want to talk to me about?" He says, clearly still confused. "and why did Will take her out of the room?"

"I didn't know how you would react," I say.

"React to what?"

"I want to move forward in the adoption process."

 **I know, sorry this isn't the best chapter ending and I was considering continuing this chapter a little longer, but I really wanted to get something up for you guys. But in other news, Lucy hit 100 reviews! Thank you to anyone who has reviewed, followed, favorited, or read this story! I've gotten nothing but positive reactions to this and I'm so grateful for that. I am considering starting something else, but I will continue to write this story however updates may come a little slower than they are now. What do you guys think? Let me know in the reviews. As always, if you have any questions or suggestions for where you want this story to go, please leave them in the reviews or send me a PM, I love reading them all. Love to you all, Addison**


	16. Chapter 16

**Erin POV**

"You do?" He questions as his blue eyes connect with mine.

"Yeah I do," I say softly. He opens his mouth to speak, but I stop him. "Don't say anything just let me explain please," I interrupt, with plea in my voice.

"Okay," He says softly as he sits up a little straighter in his chair.

"People get hit by cars and moms gets get killed and we can be shot dead every time that we walk out our front door and strap on our badges. We got lucky today, but we all could have died. I want her to her ours, really ours. I want to know that no one can take her away from her and she'll be ours for the rest of our lives. I want us to be a family."

"Erin," He says as he grabs my hand, "I understand,"

"You do?" I say as I let out a breath, one I didn't even realize I was holding.

"Erin I've know for a while that eventually we we're going to adopt that little girl," He explains. "So I looked into it."

"You did?" I ask, surprised at his response. I knew he was dedicated to both her and me, but I didn't realize just how dedicated.

"Yeah I did," He tells me with a smile, "I called her social worker and she said that we have to foster for almost another three months before we can file for adoption,"

"We do?" I ask, slightly defeated by his reveal.

"Erin just because she's not legally ours doesn't mean she's any less our daughter or that you are any less her mother you know that. She loves us and we love her,"

"I know," I tell him, "I know that I do, but I cannot help feeling like she's going to be taken away from us,"

"No one is going to take her away from us," He tries to convince me.

"I know and the logical part of me knows that, but there's this feeling this horrible horrible nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that one day DCFS will come knocking at our door and tell us that she's not ours anymore."

"Erin, that won't happen. We just have to wait three more months. Three more months and then she'll be ours. Legally and in every other way that matters. We can wait three months okay?"

"Three months?" I say back to him.

"And then she'll be ours."

* * *

It's been about three months since the accident. It's finally time. We can formally and legally do what we've always known in our hearts. Soon she's be ours, actually ours.

Even though I absolutely loathed having to be off work for so long, I really did like spending the extra time with Lucy. Jay and Voight made sure I didn't even think about work, not letting me come into the district. Which I was oddly grateful for, it let me focus on the important things. After I was healed, I spent my days taking Lucy to and from preschool and taking walks with her in the park, some of the things I've missed while working cases. Even so, I was glad to come back to work when I did.

I could tell that Jay didn't like having me gone either. He wouldn't say anything to me, but they bumped Kim up while I was gone and she's been giving me insight into how things were going. He liked having Kim as a partner, but she's been telling me how he's never the way he is with me with anyone else.

Over the past few months, Voight had become significantly more comfortable with the idea of Jay and I. It was almost strange. Lucy, Jay, and I have been able to over there for dinner a bunch of times and Hank had only given Jay the death stare a couples times. I was surprised that Jay ended up being the one that told him, I was almost positive that it was going to have to be me. I almost fell out of the hospital bed when he told me what he'd done.

Lucy had gotten more comfortable with Hank too, running into his office to play almost every time we brought her over to the district. I think he likes having her around, she brings joy to the district, something that can lack with the kinds of cases we work.

Jay and I have made the call together to not tell the rest of the unit the plan to adopt her until it actually goes through, with the exception of Hank of course. I really don't know why, but it seemed like a good call at the time. Even though the foster care files only listed me as the foster parent, we talked to our lawyer and she said it would be okay if we added Jay's name to the adoption papers.

I stare down at the completed stack of adoption files. Everything is ready to go, the home study was done and paper filled out, all we need to do is take the paperwork to DCFS and wait for it to go through. That's it. Then she'll be ours.

"Hey babe," Jay says as he walks into the kitchen, dropping a kiss on the top of my head. "You ready for today?"

"Jay I've been ready since the day we brought her home," I say with a smile, my rasp strong as ever.

"That's what I like to hear," He responds with a grin.

"Good morning!" Lucy squeals as she walks into the kitchen, quickly shutting down our conversation. We sat Lucy down a couple weeks ago and asked if she wanted to live with us for good and she responded with an enthusiastic yes. But together we made the call not to tell her about the filing until everything went through, we would tell her when we knew that we would signing the papers.

"Hey baby," I say as I pull her onto the bar stool next to me. "How'd you sleep?"

"Super good," She says with a giggle as she settles on the stool. "I had a good dream,"

"Oh yeah, what was it about Bean?" Jay asks, his back turned to us as he pours two cups of coffee.

"Well we had a dog and her name was Penny and she was cute," She says, the words pouring out of her faster than her mouth could move, some of them getting tangled together.

"Oh well that sounds fun," I say as Jay hands over the cup and he leans onto the side of the island.

"Can we get a dog Mama?" She asks with those big eyes.

"Not right now sweetie, maybe one day though okay?"

"Okay," She says, "Can I have cereal for breakfast?"

"Yep," Jay says as he reaches behind him to a cabinet to grab a bowl and the box of her favorite cereal from the one adjacent to it and he pulls a drawer open to pick up a spoon. The rest of the morning is uneventful and normal, everything following our usual routine. We eat breakfast together, Jay jumps in the shower while I do Lucy's hair and get her dressed and then we switch and he packs her lunch and gets her shoes on. Same thing everyday, the most amazing feeling of normalcy. We drop her off at her school and that's when the normal ends.

Instead of taking a left out of the parking lot, we take a right, driving away from the district and towards the city building.. We're both dressed nicer than usual, me in a pair of black skinny slacks, a white blouse, a dark grey coat, and a pair of burgundy suede heels that feel foreign on my feet and him in slacks and a white button down. Even though we're not appearing in court today, we thought it might be a good idea to not show up in jeans and t-shirts. Although we do have those stowed in my trunk for afterwards, I can already tell that Jay is itching to return to his normal attire. Our guns and badges are safely locked in a compartment under the floor of my trunk, we're going into that building today as Lucy's parents, not cops. "Got the papers?" I ask nervously as my knuckles go white because I'm gripping the wheel so hard.

"Right here," He says with a grin as he flashes the stack to me.

"We filled everything out right? And we did it correctly? We called Voight right, he knows we're coming in late? It's not share day again is it?" I question, my voice becoming shaky as I realize I'm beginning to ramble, nerves I didn't even know I had getting the best of me.

"Erin," He says as he places his hand on my upper arm. "Everything is done, the paperwork is filled out, you have checked it fifty times and you called Voight last night, he knows where we are and he knows we're coming in late and share day was two days ago. It's all taken care of, just drive and relax okay?"

"We're really doing this aren't we?" I say as a smile makes it's way onto my face.

"Yeah," He says softly as he gives my arm a squeeze. We ride the rest of the way in a comfortable silence, the car enveloped in a strange mixture of happiness and anxiety as we make the drive that will change both of our lives.

I pull into the parking lot, my hands still placed firmly on the wheel, anxiousness taking over my mind.

"C'mon Erin," Jay says, realizing my fear. "It's all good, we're just filing the papers today, easy peasy."

"Easy peasy," I repeat absentmindedly as I stay frozen in my seat.

"Erin you want this, you have wanted this for months, all you have to do is walk into that building," He says to me, a caring firmness in his tone.

"I can do this," I repeat, more sure of myself this time.

"Yes you can," He says, "Now let's go." He steps out of the passenger seat with papers in hand.

I take a deep breath before stepping out of the car. I shiver under my coat as my heels click against the pavement. We meet again at the hood of the car. He grabs my hand in his, knowing that his pep talk helped but I'm still a nervous mess.

We make our way across the parking lot and up the stairs leading to the front doors of the municipal building. We've walked through these doors more times than I can count, interviewing social workers, talking to parents, dropping off kids, but never have I felt like this. This is the day that could change my life. That's pure and total insanity.

We ride the elevator in silence to the fourth floor, Jay hand's clutched in mine and his arm holding the paperwork. We continue the silence down the hallway, the only noise being the faint click of my shoes on the floor. I push open the frosted glass door to the offices of the Department of Children and Family Services.

"Welcome to the Department of Children and Family Services, how may I help you?" A woman in her mid-forties says in a very monotone voice, she really doesn't look like she wants to be here. Her glasses sit on the very tip of her nose and permanent scowl seems to be plastered on her face.

"Hi we have an appointment with Claire Fowler," Jay says, telling her the name of Lucy's social worker.

"I'll let her know you're here," She says as she picks up the phone and dials her extension, "Claire your 8 o'clock is here," She says boredly.

"Thank you," I say softly with a smile as we stand awkwardly waiting for Claire in the center of their lobby. We don't have to wait long, only about 30 seconds after she put down the phone I see the smiling brunette round the corner. I really like Claire, we've met her a few times and she's a wonderful person. I know that all of the DCFS social workers are always slammed and it's hard for them to put their full energy on every case, but with Claire it seems like she genuinely cares about everything single child that she's working with.

"Good morning guys!" She says with a grin as she meets us, "let's head back to my office," She says with a smile as she ushers back down the hallway.

"So how has everything been going?" She says as she closes her office door and Jay and I get settled in two grey arm chairs sitting opposite her desk.

"Things have been going really really good," Jay says with a smile, his hand still holding mine as they dangle in the space between the chairs.

"That's great," She says with a smile as she flips open Lucy's file. "No adjustment issues, behavior is still good?"

"She's seems to be doing really well and we haven't had any major behavior issues at all," I respond honestly.

"That's exactly what we like to hear," She says with a grin. "So I see you are bringing me adoption papers today?"

"Yes, right here." Jay says as he places the thick stack on her desk.

"Everything is in order?" She asks as she pulls them over to her.

"Yes," He says with a chuckle, "Erin checked them about fifty times,"

"Good call," She says as she flips through them, "you wouldn't want to have to redo this mountain of paperwork on a technicality,"

"We'll do whatever we need to do adopt Lucy," I say as Jay squeezes my hand.

"I know you will," She says. "Okay at glance everything seems to look good, so you can go now, I'll look through these and get them filed and you should be called in for the custody hearing later soon," She says.

"Great thank you," I say as a strange sense of relief rushes my system.

"Alright let's get going then," Jay says as he gets up.

"I will hopefully being seeing you guys again very soon!" She says with a wave as we leave her office.

"Thank you," I say again as I close the door behind me. My confidence has been fully restored, I have no idea why I was so worried in the first place.

"We did it," Jay whispers in my ear as we walk back down the hallway.

"Hell yeah we did,"

 **I'm back! I am so sorry about the delay with the chapter! My schedule just got absolutely slammed and I had to deal with some personal stuff, but I will try to get chapters out faster from now on, but I really cannot promise anything. But anyway, here it is. Again I have absolutely no idea how the foster and adoption processes work, so very little, if any of the information is accurate. Thank you for reading and please review! -Addison**


	17. Chapter 17

**Jay POV**

"Hey Beanie," I say as Lucy jumps into her car seat, "how was your day?"

"Boring," She says bluntly as Erin buckles her in. I stifle a laugh and I can tell Erin is trying to do the same thing.

"I'm sure you did something exciting," Erin says, "you always have fun at school,"

"Nope, just boring," She says again, "how was your day Mama?"

"I had a really, really good day Luce," She says as a smile makes it's way onto my face, knowing exactly to what she's referring to.

"What'd you do?" She asks.

"It's a surprise, you'll learn about it later okay?" She says as she drops a kiss to her forehead before leaving the backseat and making her way to her seat.

"Mama tell me!" She whines. She really, really hates having things kept from her. She's kinda like Erin in that way.

"Nope," Erin says with a grin, "but it's a really good surprise, I think you're going to like it,"

"I will?" She asks.

"Definitely," I add with a grin.

* * *

**Erin POV**

"Goodnight Luce, sweet dreams, I love you," I say as I drop a kiss to her forehead. We'd gotten home a few hours ago and spent the evening cooking dinner with her before playing a very intense game of Candyland, one of her new favorites.

"Goodnight Mama, I love you too," She says as she stares up at me with those big bright eyes.

"Okay sleep tight, we'll see you in the morning okay?"

"Okay," She says as she smiles up at me. I shoot her a small smile back before moving to turn off the switch in the corner of her room.

"All good?" Jay asks as I appear back in the living room.

"She'll be out like a light in two minutes or less, you know how she is," I tell him, grateful that she's always been such a good sleeper.

"Good that,s good," He says, obviously distracted.

"Hey baby what's up," I ask as I take a place next to him on the couch.

"How did we get to incredibly lucky with her?" He says as I think back to the day that Lucy came crashing into our lives.

"I don't know," I say honestly as he loops his arm around my shoulders. "I ask myself that everyday,"

"So many things had to line up perfectly, so many things had to wrong for us to get this amazing little girl," He says as I lean into his chest.

"I know," I say. "Sometimes I feel guilty, you know she had to lose her mom for us to get here and sometime I feel like it's wrong that I'm so happy with her when someone had to lose their life for us to get here."

"I know what you mean, I feel the same thing sometimes, but I tell myself that even though Hannah had to die for this to happen, she would want Lucy to be happy with us and that's all we can do."

"Yeah I guess you're right," We fall into a comfortable silence, the only noise the simple cadence of our breath and the steady pounding of Jay's heartbeat filling one of my ears. The shrill ring of the phone interrupting us. I groan before leaping up to get it, not wanting to wake her up.

"Hello," I say as I grab the phone out of the cradle.

"Hello, may I speak to Erin Lindsay and or Jay Halstead?" She asks.

"This is Erin, may I ask who this is?" I ask, confused as almost no one ever calls the home phone.

"Pardon me, I've forgotten to introduce myself, my name is Caroline Clarke with the Department of Childrens and Family Services," That's odd, we've never been called by anybody other than Claire.

"Oh okay," I say, trying to hide my confusion.

"I understand you filed adoption papers with us recently, yes?"

"Yeah." I respond, "just this morning actually, I didn't think they would go through that fast,"

"They haven't, we actually are calling with some news regarding your foster child, a Lucy C. McGovern I believe," She says, her voice staying monotone, almost like she's reading off a paper.

"What kind of news?" I ask, my brow starting to furrow with the first signs of frustration.

"We have located a blood relative of the child," She says. My heart drops as the words reach my ears. I know what this means. It means they could take her away from us.

"Okay," I stutter, my voice now on the brink of breaking as I can feel the lump rising in my throat. "Um can I ask who it is?"

"Her name is Haley Mason, she's the father Paul's half sister," I feel like the room is starting to spin, my brain isn't able to process the information that she's trying to relay to me.

"How did we not find her in our initial search?" I ask, trying my absolute best to keep it together.

"Paul's father Mark was married to Haley's mother Laura when his mother Kate became pregnant through their affair. The Masons were and are still high up in Chicago society so he paid her off to keep it a secret and his name off the birth certificate when he was born, that's why her name didn't come up in the preliminary search. Now this all happened before Haley was even born,"

"How does she even know about Lucy," I argue.

"I was getting to that," She says. "When Haley was 18 she found out about Paul. She demanded information from her father and they met up when she turned 19. Haley even lived with Paul and Hannah for a little while before they split. Right after Lucy was born, Haley's mom Laura found out that she had been living with Paul and she was furious and demanded that Haley come back home or else she would cut her off. She hasn't spoken to either of them since then. She saw Hannah and Paul's names written in an article about the shooting and she that's when she called us claiming to be her aunt. We ran DNA tests to confirm her story and she is in fact related to the child." She finishes.

"You've got to be kidding me how are we just now finding out about this?" I demand.

"You don't have the legal rights to the child so we we're not at liberty to discuss parts of her case that did not involve you." She says softly. "I'm sorry,"

"Does she have any rights to her?" I ask, still trying to keep it together.

"She does," She adds, "as the only relative to come forward she is the most obvious choice for custody,"

"So we're losing her?" I cry, my heart falling to the floor and shattering into a million pieces. This gets Jay's attention. His gaze snaps over to me and he's at my side before I can blink, my free hand encased in his.

"Not necessarily, I said obvious, not automatic," She says quickly in attempt to calm me down. "The good news is that since your adoption papers were filed this morning, the two of you and Haley both have equal rights to the child."

"But we're going to have to fight for her right?" I ask.

"Unfortunately," She tells me.

"Okay tell me what we need to do, we're not losing this little girl,"

"You need to hire a lawyer, fast and a good one,"

"We'll do whatever we need to do," I tell her, the tears starting to pool in the corners of my eyes.

"Oh there's a couple more things, Haley is a very high profile socialite, so this thing is going to be a media circus," She adds.

"We can deal with that," I say reluctantly. I know that this is going to be hard on everyone, the last thing I want is my family's faces plastered on a tabloid.

"And this is going to be the hard part," She pauses, "Lucy cannot be in your custody during the duration of the trial."

"What?" I say tearfully, the tears flowing down my face at this point. I can see the worry and the fear in Jay's eyes. He's still completely in the dark, he has no idea that any of this is going down. There must be a million worst case scenarios running through his head right now. Not that this isn't the worst case scenario.

"I'm so sorry Erin, I've talked to Claire and I know how much you and Jay love that little girl but I can't get around this. It's strict protocol."

"I understand," I lie, not wanting to make her feel worse than she already does even though my world is falling around me. "How long do we have with her?" I ask.

"The trial is scheduled to start on December 23, so we'll have to take her in about a week." She says. Today is December 15. Eight days. We have eight days left with our baby girl before she is taken away from us possibly forever. "I'm so sorry," She adds.

"It's not your fault," I add, trying not to choke on my own words.

"Good luck, I wish you both the best,"

"Thank you," I choke out before slamming the phone into the cradle and collapsing into Jay's arms, my tears quickly staining his shirt. He waits patiently, rubbing methodical circles on my back until I'm ready to talk.

"They found a relative, an aunt, she's a socialite her name is Haley Mason," I say softly, trying my best to keep the tears attempting to fight their way up at bay. But he knows what that means as soon as the words tumble out of my mouth. The look on his face makes it way too real. "She wants custody," He lets out a huge sigh as the words leave my lips, running his hand through his hair.

"We can fight this right?" He asks, his eyes fierce.

"Yeah, she said that we need to hire a lawyer quickly," I say, my voice starting to break.

"Okay so we'll hire a lawyer, we'll get through this it's going to be okay, she's staying here," He says as he begins to pace around the kitchen. My heart breaks hearing him say those words.

"Jay that's not all of it," I choke out, my voice breaking.

"What else could there be?" He says, turning towards me and throwing his hands in the air.

"Jay they're taking her away," I say, the lump in my throat quickly returning to tears.

"What?" He nearly yells. The raised nature of his voice only makes me cry harder and I crumple into a ball on the floor, my back leaning against the cool wood of my cabinets. "Erin what do you mean they're taking her away?" He asks as he joins me on the floor. "You said there was a trial, we could fight for her,"

"There is," I cry out, "But they're taking her away until the trial is over, eight days, we have eight days left with her." I can see the effect of the shock of my words and he grabs my tiny body and wraps me in his arms.

"It's going to be okay, Erin," He whispers in my ear, "But for now we're going to spend the next eight days with our girl and then they're going to take her. And then we are going to go to trial and we'll get our baby back okay? And then she's going to have a whole amazing life with us,"

"How do we tell her?" I cry out.

"I don't know Er, I don't know," He says his voice breaking.

"Jay we can't lose her," I cry.

"I know, I know, we aren't going to lose her, we are going to fight and we are going to win," He chokes out. This is one of the very few times I've seen Jay Halstead cry. He loves her so much, so do I. More than I ever thought I could love something.

We spend the rest of the night there on the kitchen floor, Jay holding me in his arms as we stain each others clothes in tears. That peace I'd felt just hours earlier is gone. My mind is chaos. I don't know how to function without her anymore. She is a piece of me, she's taken a piece of me. Losing her would be like losing a little part of myself. We won't let this happen. We can't let it happen.

 **Thank you for reading and please review! -Addison**


	18. Chapter 18

Jay POV

It had been a hard night. It still doesn't feel real. We haven't moved all night, staying in that same position held in each other's arms crying through the pain. But it did nothing to dull it. We've done everything in our power to avoid this situation but we're here, so we will fight for her. No matter what it takes.

All I wanted to do was be there for Erin, make her pain go away and make everything okay again. I want to support her, but all I wanted to do was disappear.

I watch in despair as the sun rises, I know that Lucy will be up in a matter of minutes and I have no idea what we're going to say to her. How do you tell a child that you love them, but they have to go? I've been trying to figure it out all night and it's just not happening.

"What are we going to tell her," I say softly, my salty tears now dried across my cheeks as I look for a voice of reason in the darkness.

"We've got to be straight with her babe," She whispers, "she's smart, she'll know something is wrong and the last thing we want is her thinking that we aren't being honest with her,"

"I guess you're right," I say back, "it's just as soon as we tell her, it makes it all so real."

"I know," She says as I pull her closer to me, "but we have to do it okay?"

"Okay," I whisper back as I start to hear little footsteps pattering down the hallway.

"It's time babe," She says as she wipes the tears from her cheeks and pushes on my knees to get herself to a standing position.

"Hey baby," She says softly as she forces a smile onto her face and Lucy appears in the kitchen.

"Good morning Mama," She says, the skepticism clear in her voice. She knows something is up. Erin was right, she always is.

"Luce we have to talk to you about something," I say quietly as I get up to join them.

"Am I in trouble?" She asks fearfully.

"No no no baby of course not, just some things are going on and we need to tell you about it okay?" I tell her.

"Okay?" She says, still skeptical.

"Let's go sit over here," Erin says softly as she places her hand on Lucy's back.

"Is something wrong?" She asks as her brow furrows in curiosity and worry.

"Yeah baby," Erin answers quietly, "something's really wrong," I try to swallow the lump in my throat as we make our way to the living room.

"What's wrong Mama?" She asks as I pull Lucy onto my lap on the couch.

"You know we love you, so so much," Erin says quietly as she holds Lucy's little hands in hers.

"Yeah and I love you too," She says slowly. "What's going on?"

"So you've been staying with us for a while now, and we tried to make it so that you would be here forever," She says, trying to make this situation make sense in Lucy's head.

"Really?" She says, hope now filling her eyes. "You wanted to keep me?"

"Of course we did baby," Erin says and I drop a kiss to the top of her head. "We still do,"

"So what's wrong? You said something was wrong?" She asks again, even more confused this time.

"So when we went to go talk to the lady to adopt you and she told us that you had an aunt that we didn't know about." Erin says, I can tell that her voice is starting to break a little bit.

"I have an aunt?" She asks as she turns to face me.

"Yeah Luce, you do, her name is Haley," I say, taking over for Erin for a little bit.

"What's bad about that?" She asks, "I've never had an aunt before,"

"It's not bad that you have an aunt," I explain, "but your aunt, she wants to take you away from us,"

"I-I-I don't want her to do that," She stutters as the tears begin to pool in her eyes.

"I know Luce," I say as I pull her in closer, "we don't want you to go either. But there are a lot of people that love you and a lot of people that want you to live with them, but we are going to fight as hard as we can to keep you with us okay?"

"You promise?" She asks as she looks up at me.

"Yeah," I say with my face pressed into the top of her head, "we promise,"

"So what's going to happen?" She asks.

"We going to do something called a trial and that's where we bring a lawyer and she'll bring a lawyer and they'll talk to a bunch of people and then a judge is going to decide if you are going to live with us or her okay?" Erin says. She takes a deep breath before saying, "And during the trial, you are going to live with another family for a little while,"

"What?" She says, her face emerging from my chest before looking straight up at Erin. "Why do I have to go away?"

"I don't know Luce, I really wish you didn't have to but this is how the law works," She says, her voice getting closer and closer to breaking.

"But then I'll come back?" She asks, the tears starting to roll down her pale cheeks. I can feel my heart breaking in my chest, watching the two people I love most in this world in pain.

"We are going to try so hard," Erin chokes out, "and I promise you we are not going to stop until you are ours okay?"

"Okay." She says tearfully as she wraps her arms around Erin. "I love you Mama,"

"I love you too darling, so so much,"

* * *

Erin POV

It's been eight days. Eight days of trying to have the most fun we possibly could and eight nights of crying in each other's arms while she sleeps away in the next room over. We got a lawyer, a really really good lawyer. But today is the day. Today they take our little girl away. I'm numb. I still have to convince myself that this is really happening, this is real. It's not a nightmare and I can't wake up.

"We can do this, we can do this," Jay repeats mindlessly to me as we sit next to each other like robots at the kitchen island, mugs of coffee clutched in our hands.

"No we can't," I say without looking at him, still staring absentmindedly into space, "but we have to," It's 8:54 in the morning, the social worker will be here to take Lucy to her temporary foster family at 9. We have six minutes, possibly the last six minutes that we will ever spend with her.

"Hi Daddy," Lucy says as she shuffles out of her bedroom, her tone matching the somber mood.

"Hey darling," He says as he pulls her in for a quick hug, quickly trying to hide his pain from her, she didn't need anymore of it. "You all ready? Packed all your toys?" Jay and I had packed all of her clothes into a large suitcase, but we'd given her another one to pick all of the things that she wanted to bring with her.

She nods at us. Her lip begins to quiver as tears start to roll from her eyes.

"I don't want to go," She cries as she throws herself into my arms.

"We don't want you to go either, but we are going to fight until you are ours, just like we talked about okay?" I choke out.

"I love you," She says to me.

"I love you too baby," I say as I pull her in tighter towards me, "and it's all going to be okay alright? I promise," We spend the next five minutes huddled together, not wanting to let go and wanting anxiously for the ring of the doorbell. I just wanted to stop time, stay here in this moment where she is safe and she is ours. But I don't control time.

I hear the doorbell ring and for what feels like the millionth time this week, my heart breaks.

"I got it," I whisper quietly as I leave Lucy sobbing in Jay's arms. I make the slow walk over to my front door and pull it open to see a woman dressed in a grey pantsuit, file folder and briefcase in hand.

"Erin Lindsay?" She asks.

"That's me," I say with a deep breath.

"My name is Kathryn Owens, I'm here to collect the child," I cringe, she makes it sound so clinical and this is anything but clinical.

"Of course," I say trying to swallow the lump in my throat and hide the fact that I've been crying all night. "She's ready to go,"

"Wonderful," She says as she follows me into the kitchen. Lucy is in her same position, curled into Jay's chest crying her eyes out.

"Hey sweet girl," I say as I move over towards them, "Luce it's time to go, this nice lady Ms. Kathryn is going to take you now, okay?"

"Do I have to?" She chokes out,

"Yeah baby, you do. I'm so sorry,"

"I don't want to," She cries.

"I know you don't," I choke out, "I don't want you to go either, but you have to okay?" I say, trying to coax her.

"It's okay," Jay says. "Just as soon as you know you'll be back with us okay?"

"You swear?" She asks.

"I swear," He confirms. "But right now you have to go with this nice lady okay?"

"Okay," She says with a deep breath.

"Okay," He sets her down on the floor and she slowly makes the move over to her suitcases and grabs the smaller one containing all of her toys.

"Do you need any help with the luggage?" I ask, hoping that she will so I can spend just a few more minutes with our sweet girl.

"I'm okay thank you," She says as I feel myself deflating. She grabs the handle of the big suitcase and starts making her way towards the front door. "Say your goodbyes now please,"

I try to keep my tears at bay, not wanting to make Lucy any more upset than she already is, but it's in vain. They start pooling in the corners of my eyes and I feel them running down my cheeks.

"I love you so so much," I say as I squeeze her tighter than ever before, "and don't you worry, we are going to get you back,"

"I love you Mama," She responds before moving onto Jay. He whispers a few things into her ears that I can't hear before engulfing her in a bearhug.

I feel a lump forming in my throat as she walks away from us. Jay wraps a protective arm around me as the floodgates open up.

"We love you so much Lucy Claire!" I call out after her.

"We are going to get you back," Jay tells her as Kathryn pulls her through the front door.

"I love you!" She calls as the door shuts behind her. The slam of the door leaves us in a thick blanket of silence. That's quick to end, being interrupted by the sounds of my sobs as I collapse into Jay's arms. I know he's hurting just as much as I am, but he's trying to a rock for the both of us.

"It's okay," He says as he rubs his hand in circles on my back, "we're going to get her back."

 **Sorry this chapter went up so late, I was out of town for about a week and didn't get to work on it nearly as much as I would have liked to. Also since I've started my second story, it's gotten hard to write both at the same time, but I will try my hardest to get chapters up as fast as possible. Anyway, I have some ideas for where I want this story to go but I really want to hear from you guys about what you want to see. Please review! -Addison**


	19. Chapter 19

**Surprise! Two chapters in a weekend! I really hope you guys like this chapter because I really enjoyed writing it.**

 **Erin POV**

I stare at my reflection in the mirror, my chestnut hair pulled into a loose bun at the nape of my neck and makeup covering the dark circles under my hazel eyes caused by the week of little to no sleep. I'm wearing exactly what our lawyer told me to, a white sheath dress with capped sleeves and a pair of black pumps. It doesn't look like me at all. I don't know why she told me to wear this, but if it was going to help us, I was damn well going to do it. Anything to get her back.

A day has passed since she was taken away from us, but I feel like it's been forever. I don't even remember what life was like before she came into our lives and I don't ever want to have to.

"You ready to go?" Jay asks as he learns against the door frame in our bathroom. He wearing something simple too, a grey suit and a white shirt dress shirt.

"Yeah," I say softly, "let's go," I take his hand in mine and we make the somber walk down to the car. I grab a small black bag and my black pea coat from the hook by the front door to protect myself from the polar vortex I know is waiting for us outside.

We walk in silence, Lucy's usual babbling absent. Jay gives my hand a squeeze every couple minutes, knowing that I definitely need it. I let Jay drive, a rare thing in our house as I prepare myself for the media circus that I know will be waiting outside those courthouse doors. I Googled Haley a few days ago and a lot of people seem to care a lot about her for doing absolutely nothing except being rich. I don't get it. But I suppose there are a lot of things that I don't get in this world. We'd been thrown into the spotlight too, our names somehow leaked to the press and both of our pictures had been floating around the media for the past couple days. We'd been careful to keep Lucy out of it, the last thing we wanted was the entire city knowing who she was. Haley's people had already leaked her name to the media, much to our dismay but our lawyer had made a no pictures deal with them.

We pull into the parking lot, the flock of photographers already seemingly unruly. Jay reaches over to grab my hand, but it doesn't seem to be for my comfort this time, I think it's for him.

"We can do this," I say, realizing that it's my turn to be the rock now.

"Yeah let's go," He says. We part ways before meeting up again at the hood of the car. We both take a deep breath in before advancing towards the mob.

"ERIN!" One of them yells as they realize who we are. Jay instantly throws a protective arm around my shoulder and then the questions start flying. I can't hear any of them, the voices starting to blend together in the abyss. He ducks my head down and we push through the hoard. I feel like we've been through a war by the time we get out.

"You good?" He asks, his hands on my shoulders once we're safely inside the courthouse where there is no press allowed.

"Yeah I'm good," I lie, I am anything but good right now. "I'm just going to go to the bathroom really quick, I just need to calm myself down,"

"Okay," He says, he gives me a quick kiss on the forehead before letting me go. I give him a nod and a weak smile before taking off towards the bathroom. I weave in between the crowds of people littering the hallway in my search of the bathroom. I locate the door and push into the room and thank everything that the room is empty. I lean onto the sink and try to calm myself down. That fails so I turn to pacing, trying to control my insane nerves.

I pace the length of the bathroom, panicking about the fact that my sweet girl might be taken away from me, my daughter. I feel the tears begin to stream down my face as I hear I the door open. I wipe the tears away, I don't want to seem weak or broken in front of anyone.

My heart drops as I see the petite blonde in the mirror.

"Hi," She says, "I'm Haley Mason, Lucy's aunt I realized we never actually met." She reaches her hand out to shake, but I don't reciprocate. I recognize her from the recent articles that have been popping up all over the Internet. She looks so polished, her nearly white blonde hair cropped beneath her chin and dressed in a striking emerald green dress.

"Erin Lindsay," I said coldly, "Lucy's mother," I can tell that my words leave a less than positive mark on her, but I really don't care. I don't care how nice the woman may be, in my world she is and always will be the woman who is trying to take my baby away.

"I saw a photo of her," She quips, "she's beautiful, I always knew she would be,"

"She is," I say coldly, ignoring her attempts to bond with me.

"Listen I'm sorry Erin," She says, getting my message. "I never meant to hurt you or anyone else. I don't have anyone else left. And I feel like she'll be better off with me, being raised in the way that I feel he would have wanted. I'm sorry that I didn't try to come back into her life sooner, but she's all the family I have left. My father is dead, my mother is a bitch, my brother's dead now too and his daughter is all I have left and I want to build a family with her," She says.

"Well I already have," I growl, "She is my daughter, she calls me mama, she calls Jay daddy, we are her family. And taking her away from us will break her. And that's going to be on you. And you don't have any issues with how we plan on raising Lucy, your issue is that we do it with guns on our hips and badges on our belts. That's your issue" I snap as I bolt out of there. I can feel the tears pooling in my eyes as leave. All I want to is to see her, to hold her again, to tell her I love her. But I can't, and that's killing me. I see Jay across the hall, I can tell he's doing all he can to keep it together, but I just can't anymore. I collapse into his arms, the tears falling down the face.

"Jay I can't lose her," I choke out between sobs, "She's my baby, I can't live without her."

"I know Er, I know, I know," He says, rubbing my back, trying to comfort me, doing exactly what I did for her on that very first night. "We're going to get her back okay? I don't care what her DNA says, we're her family and any judge who doesn't see it is blind." His words do little to console me, the tears still flowing out of my eyes. "She is our daughter, we know that, she knows that, and pretty soon the judge is going to know too."

"She's my baby, Jay, I can't lose her I can't," I say, feeling like I can't breathe.

"I know babe, I know. And we're not going to lose her okay?" He says as he takes me by my shoulders and looks me dead in the eyes. "But you have to pull yourself together. We have to go fight for our girl,"

"You're right, I know you are," I say as I begin to wipe my tears. "But I can't keep it together." I choke out.

"I'm sorry babe, but you have to figure it out. We have to walk into that courtroom strong and then we'll walk out with our daughter okay?" He says. I nod my head at him and take a few deep breaths, trying to slow down and stop the tears . "You can do this," He says, "You can do this." And for the first time I actually believe it.

"Erin, Jay they're ready for you," Our lawyer Alexandra says as she pops her head out from the courtroom doors. I nod at her and grab onto Jay's arm for support as we walk in together to that court room. My heels click on the marble floors and the crowds of people around me flutter with activity , but the only thing I can hear is the deafening pound of my own heart beat. We walk through the double doors into a nearly empty courtroom. Haley sits with her counsel on the opposite side of the courtroom with her hands folded in her lap. She tries to flash me a small smile but I ignore it, choosing to look straight ahead, my arm still wrapped around Jays. We reach our seats and sit down, with me closest to the aisle and Jay on my left.

The courtroom is simple, much less extravagant than the one we are both used to seeing when we occasionally testify in criminal trials.

"Please rise for the honorable Judge Reston Wright," Jay and I both stand as we head the scooting of chairs all around the courtroom and the clicks of shoes as everyone stands up. A middle aged man with graying black hair enters from a door on the side of the bench and takes his place on the bench. "You may be seated," the bailiff continues. "Case number 165006734 in the case of the custody of Lucy Claire McGovern, Erin Kathleen Lindsay and Jay Alexander Halstead vs Haley Elizabeth Mason ." He finishes.

"Alright let's begin shall we?" Judge Wright says as he settles himself.

The trial continues, I'm usually pretty interested whenever we come to the courthouse, but today all I can think about is my beautiful daughter and how much I love her. And therefore how much it's going to hurt if we lose her. It's taking all of my focus to keep myself from breaking down into tears. I watch in oblivion as they call up witness after witness for hours but my mind only snaps to attention when Haley's lawyer says, "We would now like to call Haley Mason to the stand," I want to see this. I want to know why this woman thinks she has the right to take away my child. I feel Jay's hand tighten around my own as she makes her way from chair to the witness bench. I can hear the sharp click of her heels on the pale wood floors and the faint swish of her cropped hair against her ears.

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?" the bailiff asks as he swears her in.

"I do," She says as she removes her hand from the book.

"Please state your name and relation to the child," The judge says.

"Haley Mason, paternal aunt to Lucy McGovern," She states, her face hard and cold.

"Mr. Carlton you may begin your questioning," Judge Wright says.

"Okay Ms. Mason , first can you tell my why your name didn't come up in the first place when the search was done for family members?" He asks.

"Paul was my half brother, we shared the same father. His mother didn't put him down as my father on my birth certificate, so we didn't have any legal connection to each other. He and I met later in life, but Paul and I never had any kind of legal and recorded familial attachment." Her voice is soft and eloquent, her words flowing smoothly. She knows how to talk to people.

"Were you in contact with your brother at the time of his death?"

"No I wasn't, that's something I regret," She says. "My mother demanded that I keep out of contact with both Paul and Hannah or she would cut me off,"

"Were you aware that Paul had passed?" He asks.

"No," She answers after a pause, "I was only made aware when I saw his name written in that article about that shooting,"

"Would you have staying in contact with the McGovern family if you were given the choice?" He asks.

"She had a choice," I whisper to Jay, "She chose money," He nods at me and then puts his finger in front of his lips, signalling me to shut the hell up.

"Of course, they were the only real family I've ever had, Paul and Hannah took me in when I felt like no one wanted me and I felt like I was a part of something for the first time, it killed me to have to let go of that,"

"Do you love her?" He asks, turning the tables on us all.

"I did, and I know that I can again,"

"Thank you Ms. Mason, Ms. Drayton the witness is yours," That was fast. I guess he thought their got their point across.

"Thank you, Mr. Carlton," Alex says with what I assume is a fake smile as she makes her way towards the witness stand. She's ruthless, that's why we hired her.

"Good morning Ms. Mason, how are you doing today?" She says, starting with a greeting.

"I could be better thanks," Haley responds distantly.

"Okay I'll continue," She says, "So would you say that money is the most important thing to you?"

"Objection!" Haley's lawyer calls from the other side of the room as he stands up. "Counsel is testifying,"

"I'm simply trying to build her character her honor," Alex defends. I hold my breath, waiting for what he'll say.

"Overruled, answer the question Ms. Mason," Judge Wright says.

"No," She answers slowly, "I was raised wealthy yes, but there are a lot of things that are more important to me than money,"

"Like family?" Alex asks.

"Yes," She responds carefully, "like family."

"Then why did you chose to keep your trust fund rather than staying in contact with your half brother and his family?" She asks, I can tell that Alex's question stings Haley but I really don't care right now.

"Um I didn't have a choice," She stammers.

"You always have a choice," Alex responds.

"Objection!" He yells again.

"Still trying to build character here," Alex responds with huge amounts of sass running through her voice.

"Overruled, but you are on thin ice Ms. Drayton reel it in please,"

"Of course," She says with a smile.

"Listen, I was 21, I didn't have a job, no job experience and I had relied on my parents for everything. I didn't think that I would be able to survive without them."

"You mean without their money?" Alex corrects.

"Yes," She admits reluctantly, "I didn't think I could survive without their money,"

"And what are you doing now? Who's your employer?" She asks.

"I do not have one," She says slowly.

"And so you are living off of your trust fund is that correct?"

"Yes is it," She says. Haley knows that this is going sour, I know she does. A small part of me feels bad for her, Alex is tearing her to shreds but a much bigger part of me just feels like she's getting exactly what she deserves.

"As your father is deceased your mother controls the trust correct?"

"That would be correct, yes," She says slowly with a nod.

"Would this also be the woman who threatened to cut you off when you made contact with your brother?"

"That would be her," She says.

"So what do you think she would do if you got custody of his child? Would she cut off your trust? How would you support the child? You don't have any real job experience do you? What's keeping you from walking out again?" Alex says, her voice getting louder by each word.

"Objection!" He yells again. "Badgering the witness!"

"Sustained," Judge Wright says with a glare, "Ms. Drayton, take a step back,"

"Withdrawn,"

"No I would like to answer that please," Haley says forcefully.

"Haley," Mr. Carlton interrupts.

"That's her prerogative Mr. Carlton," Judge Wright says, "Ms. Mason you may answer the question."

"Thank you," She says before taking a deep breath. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing, I'm not going to lie to you. But neither do they!" She yells, zipping straight to defensive mode. That makes my blood boil. For her to tell me that I don't know what I'm doing is way out of bounds.

"Objection!" Alex exclaims.

"On what grounds?" Mr. Carlton argues.

"Lack of foundation! She doesn't know anything about how Ms. Lindsay and Mr. Halstead parent the child." She says.

"Sustained, I will disregard, Ms. Mason I'm going to allow you to continue,"

"I have no idea what I'm doing," She repeats, "but no first time parent ever does and I want to learn. I can do this and I will sit here all day and prove it to you. As for my mother, I will take care of her and if she does revoke my trust I will figure it out. I'm going to walk out because I'm ready this time. I'm stable, I can do this. Have I covered all my bases?"

"Just about," She says with a sarcastic smile. "I just have one more question, you haven't seen Lucy McGovern since she was under a year old, how do you know anything about her?"

"I don't," She answers honestly. "But she's my family and I'm going to fight for her."

"Thank you Ms. Mason, that will be all," She gives her another sarcastic smile and makes her way back to the bench that Jay and I are seated behind.

"What the hell was that?" I say quietly as she rejoins us. "She basically just said she would do anything for Lucy,"

"Don't worry, tomorrow we are calling all of your witnesses and we'll paint you guys as the obviously better choice to be her parents." Alex answers.

"We are the better option," Jay faintly argues.

"I know that and tomorrow by the end of the day, the judge will know that too and you'll be walking out the front door of this building with your daughter."

"You think so?" I asks, swallowing the lump in my throat. I'd known that the possibility of losing her was always there, but even after we had gotten the call from DCFS it hadn't seemed was still insane and far out. But now as we sit here in a Chicago courtroom, it's realer than real.

"Erin I'm not lying to you when I say that your chance look very, very good," She says with a smile.

"We gotta keep the faith babe okay?" Jay says as Alex nods in agreement.

"Okay." The two of us watch as Haley and Carlton cycle through who knows how many more witnesses as we keep our hands clutched together under the table. Alex goes up fairly often to question their witnesses and I knew she was good, but I really didn't know how good she ways. That said, Haley had unlimited funds and her guy was going strong. She seems like a nice person, she really does and maybe under different circumstances we might even be friends. But not these, definitely not these.

"Court is adjourned!" Judge Wright says loudly with a bang of the gavel as I flinch in my seat. "We will reconvene tomorrow morning at nine,"

"And then we'll get our girl back," Jay whispers as he squeezes my hand.

 **So there's chapter 19! If you guys have anything you want me to weave into this story, please just let me know and I will try my best. I hope you guys will leave me a review because they do really make me want to write more. Anyway, I hope you guys liked this chapter!**

 **-Addie**


	20. Chapter 20

**Just to clarify a couple of things, in this story Nadia did die, but Erin never went off the rails. She also had the job with the Task Force, but nothing happened between her and Jay during that time. Also, Ruzek and Burgess are still together but they aren't married, still engaged. Enjoy chapter 20!**

Yesterday was brutal. Watching all of Haley's witnesses say while she should have Lucy. It was hard, I'm not going to lie. But today belongs to us, and we're going to take them down hard, nothing was going to get in the way of us getting our daughter back.

Today was Christmas Eve, it's not a federal holiday, so we'll spend the day once again in court. Back at my apartment, we had set up a tree with Lucy and an abundance of gifts from us and the rest of the team lay under it with her name scrawled across nearly all of them, we're keeping the faith.

At the courthouse, we had the rest of the unit plus Kim and Will and even Sylvie, Gabby, and Natalie. They were all testifying for us and I couldn't be more grateful and I know Jay feels the exact same way.

"Thank you again so much for doing this," I say gratefully to the circle of people surrounding me. Everything hurts, but I was trying to keep a strong facade for the rest of my people, even though they could probably all see right through it. Neither of us have gotten a good night of sleep in over a week and we probably won't until she's back in our care.

"Erin," Kim says as she places a hand on my left shoulder, "we're a family, anything you guys need we're here okay?" The rest of the group murmurs in a agreement.

"Still, thank you," Jay adds.

"Don't even mention it," Antonio adds as Voight shoots me a rare smile.

"Jay, Erin, it's time to go," Alex says as she comes up behind us.

"Thank you again," I say again.

"Erin, shut up, go get that girl back," Ruzek tells us with a smirk. This garners a laugh from the rest of them as Alex rushes the two of us back into the courtroom. We'll see them again later, but for now they'll all be held in the witness room. I feel my blood beginning to boil as I catch sight of one Haley Mason, just as polished as she was yesterday, this time in royal blue. Alex has me wearing something quite different today, but just a simple with a grey pencil skirt and a white cotton blouse partly covered by a grey blazer matching the skirt,all three items still wildly outside my comfort zone. I've been having flashbacks to my pantsuit days at the Task Force.

"Good morning," Haley offers optimistically from the other side of the courtroom with a small wave before her lawyer puts a hand on her shoulder, probably telling her to not talk to us. I don't react, simply following Jay silently to the unfortunately familiar seats.

"You ready?" I ask Jay.

"As I'll ever be," He says as he squeezes my hand.

"Please rise for the Honorable Judge Reston Wright," the bailiff says. The sounds of shuffling as we all rise to our feet fills the courtroom as Judge Wright's commanding presence takes control of the room.

"You may be seated," He says as the judge takes his seat on the bench, "Case number 165006734 in the case of the custody of Lucy Claire McGovern, Erin Amelia Lindsay and Jay Elliot Halstead versus Haley Elizabeth Mason," I put all of my emotions away, they can wait. Right now all I need to do is put all of my focus into winning this trial and taking our girl home.

"Thank you Hal," Judge Wright says as he settles himself, "We will continue today with Ms. Drayton's witnesses and I will make my ruling at the end of the day. Let's proceed," He bangs his gavel and with that we are off to the races.

I watch as everyone is put on the stand. They do well, they know how to answer questions and keep themselves out of trouble, they're cops after all. Will, Natalie, and Gabby are a little shaky but they still did very well. Haley's people didn't really get anything off any of them, all of them painting us in only the most positive light. Hank is the last of them to go up.

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?" The bailiff asks as he holds the Bible under Voight's hand.

"I do," He says in his normal rasp.

"Please state your full name for the record," Judge Wright asks.

"Henry Richard Voight," He replies.

"Ms. Drayton you may begin your questioning," He says.

"Thank you," She says with a smile, hopefully real this time as her heels click towards Hank.

"Good afternoon,"

"Good afternoon," He replies back.

"Let's start easy, what is your relation to Ms. Lindsay?"

"Not legally, but I would refer to her as my daughter," He says as he looks over at me. I smile back at him, tears in my eyes. He's referred to me so many times as his family, but I've never actually heard him call me his daughter. I don't even know what he said through the rest of his testimony, I'm sure it was great though. All I can remember is him saying that I was his daughter. Today is a day for family.

"Thank you Sergeant Voight, that will be the end of your questioning you may step down from the bench,"

"No problem,"

"Ms. Drayton call your next witness please,"

"I would like to call Erin Lindsay to the stand," Jay gives my hand a squeeze, a silent symbol of support and I take a deep breath before making my way towards the stand, knowing that they will bring up my past. I just have to suck it up and get through it.

"Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?" The bailiff asks after placing a worn Bible under my hand.

"I do,"

"Please state your full name for the record,"

"Erin Amelia Lindsay,"

"Hi Erin," Alex says as she replaces the bailiff at the spot in front of the bench. "How are you doing today?"

"Honestly," I say with a sigh, "I would rather be anywhere else,"

"That's fair," She says with an expressionless face, "if I was in your shoes, I would probably say the exact same thing,"

"Any mom would," I say, my eyes burning into Haley's.

"So you do consider yourself Lucy's mom?" She asks.

"Of course I do, she's my daughter, she calls me Mama. I love her like anybody else would love their child. That's what family is."

"So how did you first meet the child?" She says, taking a 180 on the subject.

"I was out on a case, my unit was responding to the gang shooting of her mother Hannah Garnell. My partner and I found her hiding in an upstairs bedroom closet and we took her back with us to the station. We called DCFS and informed then that we we're going to put her into protective custody until the case was resolved."

"Protective custody meaning your home, would that be correct?" She interrupts.

"Yes that would be," I answer.

"Please continue,"

"So I took her home and latched onto me and my partner. I couldn't leave her. That's when I made the what could be called rash decision of fostering her. Jay committed to the two of us and she's been with us ever since."

"Do you believe your choice that you mentioned was rash?" She asks. I take a deep breath before relaying my answer.

"Absolutely yes, but I won't ever regret it, it was the best decision I've ever made, easy,"

"That's good to hear, has she settled in well with you?"

"Yes very well. She calls us her parents, she has a room in my apartment and she is enrolled in preschool near where we work,"

"Is she happy?" She asks with a smile.

"Yeah," I say quietly, "she's happy."

I just have one last question, do you love Lucy?"

"More than I can say," I say with a smile but still choking down tears, images of her sweet smiling face running through my mind like a flip book.

"Thank you Ms. Lindsay, Mr. Carlton she's your witness,"

"That was beautiful Erin, may I call you Erin?" He says as he approaches me.

"I'd prefer Ms. Lindsay thank you," I respond, trying to distance myself from this man.

"Alright then let's just jump right in, you are a former heroin addict is that correct?" I take a deep breath before answering. I knew this was coming.

"Yes that would be correct." I tell him.

"What do you think that says about you?" He asks. He's not holding anything back.

"I think it says that I'm strong," I fire back. I can tell by the look on his face that he's taken aback by my statement, that wasn't what he expected me to say at all.

"What you mean by that exactly?" He says, trying to gather his now scrambled thoughts.

"I was raised in a crappy situation, that's no secret. My mom was a junkie and my dad was in prison. So that's the life that I knew. But I got myself out of it." I can feel my voice rising and the fire inside me blazing, but I don't stop. "I became a cop, I'm in stable relationship, I'm a mother and a damn good one at that. So yes, I think it makes me strong. Because I got over it and I pulled my life together, not a lot of people can say that, but here I am saying it to you as I fight for my sweet daughter." I finish, fire in my eyes and staring right through that damn lawyer.

"Alright then, that wraps up my questions for Ms. Lindsay." He says. I can tell that he had more questions for me, but they we're just going to make them look dumb. I know that after that, he can't say anything else.

"Ms. Lindsay you're dismissed," Judge Wright says with a nod as I step down.

"I love you so much, you know that right?" Jay whispers in my ear as I sit back down.

"I know, I love you too," I say back.

"Next witness please," Judge Wright says, interrupting our little moment.

"I would like to call Jay Halstead to the stand," She says matter of factly. He gives me a quick kiss on the on the top of the head before making his way towards the stand. How lucky am I to have this amazing man. He dropped everything for me and a girl he'd only known for a day based on my gut feeling and here he is fighting with everything he has for her.

"Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?"

"I do," He says.

"Please state your full name for the record,"

"Jay Elliot Halstead,"

"Ms. Drayton, it's your witness, please begin your questioning,"

"Thank you Judge Wright," She says as she approaches him.

"So how did you get all wrapped up in this?" She asks, starting out easy.

"I'm going to have to correct you there, I wasn't wrapped up in it, I made this choice and I haven't ever regretted it." My heart swells at his words.

"I apologize, but please give me a rundown of the events from your perspective," She recants, wisely changing her words.

"We found Lucy together and Erin made the choice to foster her and I told her I was there if she needed anything. We got together very soon after and we've been functioning as a family of three ever since,"

"So you, like Ms. Lindsay would consider Lucy your daughter?"

"Without a doubt in my mind, I'm her dad, Erin is her mom, and she is our daughter. We love her and that is all that matters." He finishes, his crystal blue eyes locked with mine the entire time.

"Thank you Mr. Halstead, that is all I needed to know," She says with a smile as she retreats back over to our table. "Your witness Mr. Carlton,"

"That's it?" I whisper as she sits back down next to me, somewhat annoyed that she didn't make him look even better.

"Like I said Erin, that's all they needed to hear, trust me," She says soundly.

"Okay," I respond, still uneasy about the situation.

"So how long have you and Detective Lindsay been dating?" Mr. Carlton asks as I tune back into what's actually going on.

"A little over four months," Jay responds.

"So it's a new relationship," He concludes from his answer.

"Under normal circumstances yes, but Erin and I have been partners and very close friends for over four years now,"

"I just need a yes or no answer," He says.

"Then yes, it is a new relationship," He gives in.

"So would you say that it's unstable as most new relationships are,"

"No were perfectly stable, I haven't been in a better relationship my entire life,"

"But statistically, you and Ms. Lindsay have a higher chance of breaking up at this stage in your relationship than you do of staying together," Mr. Carlton says.

"Statistically maybe, but we aren't going to break up," Jay tells him.

"How can you be sure of that?" Mr Carlton says. God this guy will not give up on this.

"Because we are dedicated to each other and dedicated to our child," I notice Haley flinch, she's been doing this every time Lucy is referred to as 'our daughter'. "I've never loved anybody the way I love Erin and Lucy and I won't ever love someone this much again. That's how I know that we are going to last.

"Okay fine, so you're going to be the wonder couple that lasts forever, just humor me what would happen to the child if you were to break up or divorce?"

"I don't know how are heads would be in the situation, even though it's never going to happen," He interjects.

"Mr. Halstead answer the question," Mr. Carlton interrupts.

"I would hope that we would handle it like mature adults. We both love that girl more than anything and I would think that we would behave in a way that made it the easiest for her, she would be the priority, she will always be our priority,"

"Thank you, but why is Lucy better off with you and your girlfriend rather than my client who has a stable income and a non-dangerous job?"

"So by income and job you mean trust fund and socialite?" Jay answers.

"Yes that would be what I mean,"

"Well for one, the two of us do have a stable income and our jobs are dangerous yes, but I believe that her growing up watching her parents go out everyday and protect the city we both love will have a more than positive effect on her. And yes, the risks are always high, but what's life without a little risk? And as for why she is better off with us, she'll be raised in a home that is filled with love and joy and laughter, and that's the best thing you could ever give a child,"

"Thank Mr. Halstead, that will be all," He says as he retreats back to his desk.

"You are dismissed," The bailiff confirms as he steps down.

"How did I do?" He asks softly as he rejoins me on the bench.

"You were amazing," I say as I squeeze his hand. I think were in a good spot, but I've seen how the custody cases can be flipped on their heads at the last minute.

"I assume we are done here as well have gone through all of of our witnesses, yes?" Judge Wright asks.

"Actually we have a last minute addition to the witness list," Mr. Carlton says as he pops up from his chair behind the desk.

"And that would be?"

"Lucy Claire McGovern,"

 **So a little bit of a cliffhanger for you guys! I hope you liked chapter 20 and have a great week! Please review.**

 **-Addison**


	21. Chapter 21

"No," I say instantly, taking a stance behind the bench.

"Excuse me Ms. Lindsay?" Judge Wright says, obviously off put by my sudden outburst.

"She's not testifying," I tell him firmly as Jay stands up behind me in defense, a protective hand lying on my shoulder.

"Why not, might I ask?"

"She's four years old, she's been thrown through the ringer and the last thing she needs is to be questioned by a couple of lawyers in suits that she doesn't know. She's already had more than her share of trauma."

"Well that's not your call to make," Haley snaps from across the room. Her attitude has certainly changed since this morning.

"It's not yours either!" I yell back as I lean forward to get a clean view of her.

"Ladies, calm down or I will have you both detained!" This shuts both of us up. I slink back into my seat and wait for what the hell they're going to say, Jay's hand resting silently on my leg.

"Continue Mr. Carlton," Judge Wright says as defuses the situation.

"We can have witness after witness attest to the character of both parties, but the only real way to find out where she's supposed to be is to ask her. Plain and simple."

"I'll allow it," I sulk in defeat, "I'm awarding an hour long recess, Mr. Carlton get your witness here or I'm going ahead with my ruling," And with a bang of the gavel, it's done.

* * *

Jay POV

We walk out of the courtroom silently, Erin clinging onto me in fear and anxiety. Alex is following us, but she keeps a respectful distance. Our friends had been released from the witness room and they were all huddled anxiously awaiting the verdict. They spot us and Kim scurries over, the rest of them not far behind.

"So?" Kim asks, curiosity written over all of their faces.

"Um we're not done yet," Erin responds softly, I know she's trying to keep it together.

"What?" Sylvie asks, "why not, they already went through all of us,"

"Haley's guy decided to call someone else," I explain.

"Wait who?" Will asks, tag teaming off of Kim and Sylvie.

"Um, they're calling Lucy," Erin answers quietly.

"WHAT?" Hanks nearly yells, setting off a chain reaction of exclamations of protest from the rest of them. It's not helping, anger won't help this. I notice tears start to trickle down Erin's cheeks and that's when I know that I have to stop it.

"Guys please!" I shout over the noise. They silence almost instantly, Kim being the first to notice the salty beads rolling down Erin's porcelain cheeks and pulls her into a tight hug.

"It's going to be okay," She whispers quietly as Erin buries her face in her shoulder.

"We can't do anything about it, we can't fight this. So we just have to keep the faith guys okay?" I tell them.

"Keep the faith," Antonio repeats quietly.

"I'm sorry to break this up guys," Alex says as she apporaches us, "but I really need to discuss a game plan with Erin and Jay,"

"It's all going to be okay," Kim calls after us and we slink away from them. We follow Alex up a set of carved stairs and through a series of hallways before she guides us into an empty conference room.

"Can they even do this?" Erin shouts almost as soon as that door closes.

"Unfortunately they can," Alex says slowly, trying to keep the two of us as calm as possible.

"How the hell did this happen?" Erin says she starts pacing the length of the room.

"Haley is panicking, she feels trapped and she knows that putting Lucy on the stand is either going to make her look really good or really bad, she knows she in a bad place and she's willing to take the gamble. That's a good thing."

"How the hell is this a good thing!?" I exclaim at her, "our four year old is being put on the stand, how the hell is that a good thing?"

"Babe," Erin says as she comes over to place her hands on my shoulders, "she means that we are in a good place, we have a good chance of winning. If that means that she has to be questioned for a couple minutes and that means we get to be her parents, it's going to be worth it," She reasons.

"But what if it doesn't our way?" I ask, staring hard into those bright hazel eyes.

"Baby we can't think like that," She says. I can tell that Alex's little speech had an effect on her, she's being the voice of reason now, that shining beacon of hope. "The only thought we can have right now is that she'll be coming home with us tonight,"

"Okay," I say slowly as I take her hands in mine.

"Okay, now we're going to sit down and listen to what Alex has to say and then we're going to walk back into that courtroom and walk out with our daughter okay?" I nod down at her and take a seat across the table from our lawyer.

"Okay, so what's the plan?"

* * *

Erin POV

We walk into that courtroom together, hands clasped between us, a strong unit. Haley was sitting in the same spot as she had been for the past two days, hands folded sharply in her lap and her lips pointed. In the past I didn't agree with Haley, but I always respected her. After her little snap the last time we were in the courtroom, that's gone.

We take our seats behind that same bench and begin the final leg of this long and unforgiving course and then just be done with it and leave it behind us.

"We're taking her to Disneyland," Jay whisper in my ear, "after we get out of here, we're going to take Lucy to Disneyland,"

"That's sounds good," I say as I smile back up at him.

"All rise for the Honorable Judge Wright," the bailiff announced as Judge Wright emerges from his chambers.

"Court is back in session," He announces as he bangs his gavel. "Case number 165006734 in the case of the custody of Lucy Claire McGovern, Erin Amelia Lindsay and Jay Elliott Halstead versus Haley Elizabeth Mason, we are on to our very last witness Lucy McGovern, let's begin,"

The bailiff leaves the room to go retrieve Lucy and my heart starts to beat faster and faster, since the day we got her, this is the longest we've ever been away from her. I have no idea why, but I feel nervous to see her again.

I suck in a deep breath and feel Jay grab my hand as we hear the doors open again. I turn around and feel the tears starting as I see my baby girl for the first time in almost three days, it doesn't seem like a lot of time, but they felt like the longest three days of my entire life.

I see the light flick on in her eyes when she sees me.

"Mama!" She yells as she sees me. The bailiff is holding on to her little hand, but if he wasn't, I don't doubt that she would have fun towards us at full speed. She looks absolutely adorable, clad in a short navy blue dress with some white cuffs near her elbows and a Peter Pan collar sitting on her neck. Her long red curls are falling freely around her shoulders, being kept out of her eyes with a matching navy headband and corresponding ballet flats.

"Hi baby," I say back to her tearfully, knowing in the back of my mind that this reunion could be extremely short lived. Jay gives my hand a silent squeeze, knowing to keep his mouth shut in front of the judge.

She settles herself on the witness stand, not fully absorbing the stakes that lie on her testimony, not that I want her to.

"Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?" The bailiff asks, his demeanor not changing due to her age.

"Yes," She answers simply.

"Hey sweetie, can you tell us your name?" Judge Wright asks, adjusting his language to her.

"My name is Lucy Claire McGovern." She answers simply.

"Alright Mr. Carlton, you may begin your questioning, be gentle or I will stop you," He warns. I suspect the the judge has children, he seems to have a real soft spot for Luce.

"Understood, thank you," He says as he begins his approach towards Lucy. It makes me want to jump in front of her, I don't trust this man and I don't want him anywhere near her. But I control myself and let things play out.

"Hi Lucy, my name is John," He says, revealing his first name for the first time.

"Hi John," She replies, her social personality coming out in her words.

"Do you know why you're here sweetheart?" He asks. He's trying to earn her trust.

"My mama and my daddy want me to live with them and my aunt wants me to live with her, so they had to talk to a man who would decide who I got to live with," She explains.

"Yeah that's right," He says with a smile, "are you scared at all?"

"No I'm not scared," She replies. That's my girl.

"That's good, there's not reason for you to be scared," He tells her. "Do you recognize this lady?" He asks as he points at Haley.

"No, but her name is Haley," She responds.

"How do you know that?" He asks.

"My mama told me," She responds.

"Your mom tells you a lot of things doesn't she?" He says.

"Yeah she does," She responds, "she's a really good mommy," She says as she looks up at me. I smile back at her, my heart swelling at her words and my hand receiving a squeeze from Jay.

"Did she tell you that you used to live with your aunt?"

"What?" She responds, her eyes widening. Crap, they're digging her into a hole and she doesn't even know it.

"Yeah, when you were a little baby, your Aunt Haley lived with you and your parents, she loved you so much, she still does," He says.

"Why did she leave me?" She asks, there we go.

"She had to, she didn't want to, I promise," He tells her.

"Okay," She says slowly, trying to process the information being told to her. For an adult, this wouldn't be a big deal. But she's four and this is overloading her brain.

"Alright thanks for talking to me Lucy, that's all my questions okay?"

"You're welcome," She says back with a smile, always the polite child.

"Ms. Drayton, please begin your questions," Judge Wright adds in.

"Thank you your honor," She says as she makes her way over to Lucy. I suck in a breath. This is our last chance.

"Hi Lucy," She says as she approaches the bench.

"Hi, what's your name?" She asks.

"I'm Alex," She says as she places her hands over the bench. "I just have one question for you okay?"

"Okay what is it?" She asks.

"Where are you parents sitting?"

"Right over there," She says as she points her tiny little finger right towards us. "That's my mommy and that's my daddy," she says with a smile.

"Thank you, that's all I needed to hear," She says with a wide smile. "I'm finished," She says as she looks up at Judge Wright.

"Alright Lucy can you go with my friend Hal for a little bit," He says as he points to the bailiff, "I have to talk to the adults for a little while okay?"

"Alright," She says as she climbs down from the chair and back down to the floor. She gives us a little bit of a wave as she leaves the courtroom, hand in hand with Hal and for the first time it really hits me that this could be the last time that I ever see her. But I stuff it down, show no fear.

"Okay, this concludes the case of the custody of Lucy Claire McGovern, please wait outside while I make my ruling and you will be called back in when I am ready to deliver, court is adjourned,"

I listen to the shuffle of chairs and feet as I Jay and I wordlessly walk out of the courtroom, making our way towards to the incredible group of friends that came to support us today. I very honestly have no idea how this is going to go. If you look at straight facts, Haley is the obvious choice. But if you go past that, I think she'll be placed with us, I hope at least.

"How'd she do?" Kim asks breathlessly as she runs up to us. I know that the entire unit had bonded with her over the past couple months, but she and Kim had something really really special. While the rest of them we're simply referred to by their first names, Kim was Auntie Kim. She was special.

"She did great," Jay tells her. "Better than we could have hoped,"

"Good good, that's good," She says quietly. "Have you gotten a ruling yet?"

"No, he just dismissed us, we're waiting now," I respond.

"Alright then we wait with you,"

* * *

"Erin, Jay they're ready for you," Alex says as she pokes her head out from the courtroom doors.

I take a deep breath and Jay pulls me to my feet as a chorus of 'good lucks' among other things filled the void.

"You ready?" I ask as we walk through the doors.

"No, but let's do this," He replies. I don't pay attention to what Haley is doing, it doesn't matter to me anymore.

"Alright let's get this over with," Judge Wright says as everyone settles themselves, "I award sole legal and physical custody of Lucy Claire McGovern to.."

 **So another cliffhanger for you guys! Hope you liked Chapter 21 and please review! I will try to get the next chapter up as fast as I possibly can. And if I haven't said lately, thank you for all of the kind reviews, they really do make my day.**

 **-Addison**


	22. Chapter 22

Erin POV

"Erin Lindsay and Jay Halstead," My heart stops beating for a second and my breath gets stuck in my chest, I only come to when Jay pulls me into the tightest hug I've felt in a long, long time.

"Did he just say our names?" I say breathlessly as I embrace him. A million things are running through my mind and I can feel my heart pulsing in my chest, waiting for Jay to confirm that I've actually heard what I think I've just heard.

"Yeah," He responds, "She's ours babe, it's over," For the first time since we've got the call, relief floods my body. I can't remember feeling this happy ever, I just want to shout it from the rooftops.

"She's ours," I repeat as the tears begin to pool in my eyes. "Thank you so much," I say as I look up at Judge Wright. She's ours. Forever. She can't be taken away from us. We are legally her parents. We have her for the rest of our lives. We'll be there when she graduates high school and college. Jay will get to walk her down the aisle and dance with her on her wedding day. We will get to be here for all the big moments, for this is just the first one.

"Don't thank me, take care of that little girl, she's a good one," He says with a beaming smile.

"We will," I say as I keep a death grip on Jay. It doesn't feel real, but in a good way this time. It feels like a dream, hazy almost.

"She's waiting for you in the east wing conference room, I assume Ms. Drayton can show you where that is?" He asks, looking down at Alex for confirmation.

"Yes sir," She responds with a wide smile.

"Then you will return to my chambers so sign the paperwork and do the surname change, sound good?" Judge Wright asks.

"It sounds amazing," Jay says with his arm wrapped around me, his face beaming.

"You guys are going to make incredible parents, she's a lucky little girl," He tells us.

"No that'd be us," I respond, "we are so insanely and ridiculously lucky to have her as our daughter,"

"That is always a good thing to hear around here," He says with a smile.

"Thank you again, so so much," Jay reiterates.

"Go,'' He says, his formal walls slowly shedding, "go see that girl," I nod up at him, tears in my eyes as we turn to walk out of the courtroom.

"Congratulations," I hear from behind me as we're leaving. I turn to see a solemn Haley standing behind me.

"Thank you," I say before looking up at Jay. "Um wait a second, I need to give you something," I say as I grab my purse and begin to dig through it, confusion tracing the lines on both of their faces. "Here," I say as I hand her my card.

"What's this?" She asks as Jay looks down at me, knowing exactly what I've just done but not exactly why. I'm not even sure I know exactly why I've done it.

"It's my number," I tell her slowly. "She's got a big and loving family with me and Jay, but you are her family too. She's got a whole life that I don't want her to forget and if she wants to know it and you, I am not going to stand in her way,"

"Thank you Erin, I wouldn't have done this," She says honestly as she looks down at her shoes.

"I know," I say, "but I think it's important that I did," I give her one final glance before almost running out of that room, waiting anxiously to embrace my sweet daughter.

* * *

"Hey Bean," Jay says softly as we enter the room, Lucy's back turned to us and Alex waiting in the hallway.

'Hi Daddy," She says with a smile as big as the world, but anxiety swimming in her eyes, "Did we win?" Her pale cheeks are flushed with pink and red waves falling perfectly, those navy flats kicked off her feet lying abandoned in the corner of the room.

"Yeah baby," I tell her, "you're coming home with us tonight and we are never letting you go," I watch as that light turns back on in those beautiful hazel eyes, how I have missed those. I'm smiling so hard my cheeks hurt, tears of joy running down my pale and freckled cheeks.

"Really?" She says as she approaches us.

"Really," Jay confirms as she throws herself at us.

"I get to come home?" She asks. It warms my heart, hearing her call our place home. But it is her home.

"Yeah baby, we just have to go downstairs and sign some papers and then we're going home okay?' I tell her as she curls herself into Jay's chest, which we're quickly learning is her favorite place to be. I lay a hand on her shoulder and lay a kiss on her forehead.

"Can we do it now?" She asks, "I just wanna go home?"

"Of course, let's go," Jay says as he lifts her up and she wraps her arms around his neck. I keep a protective hand on her back, I never want to let go of her ever again.

* * *

"Alright so here we are," Judge Wright says as he looks over his desk at the three of us, Jay and I both standing opposite us and Lucy held tight to my side, her arms laced around my neck. "I have drawn up the papers and I just need to go through a couple formalities and technicalities with the both of you,"

"Alright," Jay answers as we both nod.

"Okay first, we need to discuss her surname. Is she taking Lindsay or Halstead or are you planning on hyphenating?"

"Uh," Jay stutters, "Erin what do you think we haven't ever really talked about i-"

"Halstead," I interrupt, "I want her last name to be Halstead, of course if that's all good with you," I say as I look back at him, obviously surprising him with my outburst but still nervous to see how he reacts.

"Of course, that's okay with you right Luce?" He asks as he looks to her for an opinion. She nods and shoots her dad a smile letting him know that it's exactly what she wants.

"Okay then," Judge Wright says as he jots it down on the paperwork, "Jay and Erin you both understand by signing this adoption agreement, you are agreeing to take care of Lucy as your own child. Provide for her health, her welfare, her educational needs, and anything else that you would provide for a biological child,"

"Yes, we do," Jay responds.

"Of course," I answer.

"And Lucy, do you agree to this adoption?" He asks, looking her right in the eyes.

"Yeah," She replies with her little smile.

"Alright then, let's make it official," He says as he slides a paper and a pen over to us. "Please sign here and here," He says as he points to two lines at the bottom of the page. Jay and I scrawl our names down one by one and I hold on to Lucy as I feel my whole world changing. This is the day my life begins. Our life.

"Okay then," He says as he pulls the paper back towards him, "on this day December 24, 2016, Jay Halstead and Erin Lindsay have officially adopted Lucy Claire Halstead, she is now legally their child. I will hereby sign this document to confirm this adoption," He says as he signs his name on the final line, "Congratulations,"

"Thank you so much," Jay says as he drapes his arm around my waist.

"Yes, we cannot thank you enough," I gush.

"You are going to be great, you make a beautiful family,"

"Thank you," Lucy adds as I boost her up on my hip.

"You are very welcome little lady," He say as he leans forward, "now go out and live your lives." Jay slides his around my shoulder and gives Judge Wright a final nod before we walk out of that courtroom for the very last time.

We hadn't seen the unit yet, after the ruling we had run straight to the conference room and they still weren't aware of the results.

Burgess is the first one to see the little redhead resting on my hip and lets out a shrill shriek.

"Auntie Kim!" She exclaims as Kim runs towards us.

"You got her?" She confirms quickly with Jay.

"Yeah, she's ours," Jay responds with a grin, lending a shriek from Kim.

"Congratulations guys!" She squeals as she throws her arms around the three of us.

"Guys," Jay says as the rest of the unit makes their way over to us, "This is Lucy Claire Halstead,"

"Halstead?" Hank asks with questioning eyes.

"Yes," I reply firmly and without a second thought, "Halstead," My words are met with a myriad of words, all overlapping each other so I couldn't make out most of them. I know Hank probably doesn't think that this is the right call, but we do and that's all that matters. And right now in this moment, as I look over at my beautiful daughter and this wonderful man, the two people who I love most in the entire world, I feel home. They are my home.

 **So here's Chapter 22, the final chapter. This just seemed like a natural spot to end this and I want to thank everyone who read, reviewed, followed, and favorited this story. I've loved writing this so much and the fact that people actually wanted to read it meant so much to me. If anyone is interested in reading a sequel, please let me know because I will be more than happy to write one.**

 **Love, Addie**


	23. Sequel is Up!

Hey guys! So the first chapter for the sequel to Lucy is posted and the story is called The Light That Leads Us. Thank again to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, and followed Lucy, it really was so much fun to write it. I hope you guys like the sequel as much as the original and thank you again!

-Addie


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